


Where Do We Begin (The Rubble or Our Sins?)

by dimeliora



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Amnesia, Amputation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Curtain Fic, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:29:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimeliora/pseuds/dimeliora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU post season one. He wakes in a hospital, missing a limb and all of his memories. They tell him he is Dean Hunt. That his sister died in the accident that claimed his leg. From there he rebuilds with the help of his quirky lesbian neighbors and a homeless drifter named Sam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not a labor of love. This was a labor of extreme pain. I'm gonna be honest with you, I get a lot of comments about how I write sad things. Very sad things with happy endings. Well, none of that stuff ever made me really sad. **This did.** It has my typical obsession with happy endings firmly inserted, but the journey babies...the journey. It is a hard journey. If you decide to go on it I will be enormously grateful, if you don't I don't blame you. I grew to love this, but I think I fear it a little too if that makes any sense at all.
> 
> I have a lot of people to thank. Sam Cooke for writing ["A Change is Gonna Come"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbO2_077ixs), because this wouldn't exist without that. Chat, oh Chat, how you spurred me on with writing battles. Cheriemorte for saying, this is not a direct quote, "Amnesia fic is super fun" and then probably laughing her ass off. Also, for giving me the go ahead on a specific moment in here that I'm still not sure should be in here. HA HA did I warn you for angst already? Clex_monkie89 made the summary something useful, did a crapton of cheerleading, and called art dibs which was really ego-boosting, oh my god.
> 
> And then, of course, more than anyone ever, Sammichgirl , without whom nothing would ever get written and I would sit in an indecisive puddle murmuring to myself about out of character characters and the abundance of ~~unnecessary~~ curse words. Seriously wife, you cannot do wrong, and I love you so much.
> 
> Also, Bastille, I am _on to you_ and I know the album [Bad Blood](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HVc2eL8yjk) is your love song to the Winchesters. You can't fool me. So the title is stolen from one of their odes, and the rest of their album played on loop with Sam Cooke. If you're looking for a soundtrack, that's it.

_“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”_  
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

Life begins with three things: the color red, shouting, and pain that in a kind universe would be unimaginable.

He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows he’s being hurt and there are human hands attached to the pain.

Words that make little sense hit him everywhere, _O2_ and _traumatic rhabdomyolysis_ , and somewhere in the background is a voice that pierces the color red and wails _my brother my brother that’s my brother_.

He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows one word despite all the noise and confusion. _Sammy_.

 

\----

 

The next time he wakes up his left leg is on fire, and there’s a nurse hovering over him injecting something into his IV. A hand snaps out and grabs her wrist, and he realizes it’s his at the same time she shrieks and jumps about a foot.

“Wha – hurts.” It’s as close as he can come to the things flying through his head, screaming for his attention beyond the aches and pains, and the tiny inferno spreading from his foot to above his knee.

Her eyes soften, and she makes the needle disappear before gently disengaging his grip.

“I just gave you a shot of morphine honey, but it’s going to take a minute. When it hits you just drift off, alright? We’ll talk later after you’ve met your doctor again.”

He shakes his head, the world is nothing but pain and confusion, and that hurts almost as bad as his leg. The left half of his vision is dripping in red, screaming, blood red, and he fumbles for her again before giving it up as a bad job.

“Please – don’t hurt me no more.” It’s slurred, childlike, and the nurse covers her mouth for a second before regaining her composure.

“I’m going to try not to. Sleep now. Go to sleep.”

And he does.

 

\----

 

There’s a whiteboard on the left side of the room, and when the world isn’t red over there he can focus on it and know what it says. The board reminds him where he is, what the date is, who his doctor and his current nurse are. Despite that he remembers the nurses by what they call him.

The first conversation he is an active participant in ends with him screaming fuck at the nurse that calls him Mr. Hunt. He can’t remember why he wanted to curse at her, what she did, but it must have been something. Then again, he’s been getting pretty angry on a regular basis. It could be the pain, or the confusion, or simply the fact that when he could really see the world and comprehend it he found out that the agony centered under his left knee has no basis.

There’s no leg there anymore.

The nurse that calls him honey and always looks like she’s about to cry tries to keep an upbeat attitude. It’s not a hundred percent successful. She insists that he go over basic facts every day. His name is Dean Hunt. It is 2007, and the president of the United States is George W. Bush. He’s in a hospital in Atlanta, and according to his driver’s license he’s from the area.  He was in a car accident, and apparently the only name he could remember, the elusive _Sammy_ , was some kind of nickname for the sister that died in it.

It feels right and wrong at the same time. Everything does.

A third nurse appears as Dean’s memory gets both better and worse. She calls him Dean, no affectionate moniker and no formality, and her approach is equally tempered and straightforward. She tells Dean his anger is understandable even as she refuses to be abused, and Dean likes her for it immensely despite his mouth helplessly spewing hate.

It’s a side effect of the head injury they say. The damage that leaves him forgetting so much, seeing red, and suffering from headaches that make him weak and nauseous.

He has no visitors, apparently the dead sister was all that was left, and the good nurse tells him that there was someone when he arrived that’s wanted for questioning by the police. They think he was the other driver, the one at fault, and Dean would hold a grudge except he doesn’t remember the sibling the man might have killed or the accident that has made him a broken parody.

How can he blame someone for stealing something he can’t miss?

When they deem him well enough for physical therapy there’s a guy in a polo shirt whose name is either Mike or Mark, and he makes Dean do things that seem impossible and bring the morphine usage back to peak. Dean hates him most, until the day he takes his first step on the prosthetic leg they’ve fitted him with. Then he hates Mike/Mark a little less than the formal nurse.

A lawyer shows up at the hospital and tells Dean that he’s inherited money, lots of it, and his sister’s house. Dean doesn’t know if he wants either, and he says that but the lawyer tells him he’ll need it for hospital bills and everything else. The lawyer also tells him about his sister’s funeral.

For some reason as they discuss coffins and unattended ceremonies Dean cries. Maybe it’s the thought of the corpse being even more alone than he is or maybe it’s some buried memory, but the lawyer hands him a handkerchief and he accepts it with one shaking hand and an understanding that this is really happening.

The closest Dean gets to living in his sister’s house is riding past it in Mike/Mark’s car. He studies the exterior, the grand yard and the huge front portico, and then quietly asks his physical therapist if he’ll drive to a hotel. He stays there for a month before the good nurse, Rachel or maybe Rebecca, tells him he needs to find a home.

She says she knows a place that’s isolated, that has a very good physical therapist nearby that makes house calls, and that a former patient moved to. Dean uses the lawyer to sell his sister’s house and buy himself two acres of wooded property in Maine. There’s a neighbor on one side whose house is kind of close, but otherwise he’ll have a ton of space to simply figure out how to live broken and alone in an oversized world.

He cries the day Rachel helps him pack what little he has to board the plane. Rebecca does too.

 

\---

The end of summer passes in a haze. Dean thinks maybe he remembers more with time. For example, he knows that the cool nights and reasonable days are not what he’s used to. He remembers sweating, and the smell of motor oil. Sometimes he fingers the tools that he found in the basement of his new home and imagines that he used to do something hands on. None of the information in his wallet suggested anything else, and he never went into his sister’s home long enough to find out. He also never touched her things, or opened the box the lawyer sent him.

He did get a picture of her, floppy brown hair and soft green eyes, and it sits on his built-in bookshelves along with a random collection of paperback science fiction novels he’s picked up on his random trips into town.

The realtor explained to him that this is some kind of commune, that the people here are either very friendly or very reclusive, and that his neighbors are in the first category. He believes it, but he spends the first two weeks not answering the door and they apparently get the message.

What he knows about them can be ticked off on one hand: two women, loud music, and some sort of metallic squealing. From a distance he knows that one is tall and black, the other short and blonde, but that’s as close as he’s willing to get.

The house sits in a clearing that butts up to their property line and their own house, and then the woods begin again. They share a long winding driveway back to the main road, and then Dean’s splits off and wraps around his two-story cement block home. It’s not exactly pretty, no grand Plantation home like his sister’s place, but he loves it for being strong and solid. The design makes what heat the summer has stay out, and the whole place is filled with windows that let in sunlight and wake him in the morning.

Dean doesn’t buy curtains.

The physical therapist is named Lucas this time, and he’s harder than Mike, definitely Mike, but Dean likes him. Sometimes, after a long series of exercises and listing steps, Dean and Lucas will share a beer on the patio as Lucas smokes and discusses the area or Dean’s progress. They talk music, but Dean is just learning his own preferences so he has little to argue about.

He seems to enjoy classic rock, has a strange niggling belief that he knows some of the songs when they come on, and Lucas supports that by burning him CDs of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Dean will open the windows sometimes and blast the music as he sits in the middle of his living room and wonders if he should get a TV or a couch.

Those are the good days. On the bad days Dean ends up on some surface, sometimes the bed and sometimes the floor, unable to take himself from one place to another. His headaches come back frequently, his leg aches too much, or he’s overwhelmed with rage and despair. Those are the days when his Swiss cheese memory betrays him. Rebecca is Rachel and Mike is Mark, he’s back in Atlanta suffering at the hands of nameless tormentors, and his vision is red and bloody.

Lucas finds him like that one day, sprawled out on the floor with his hands buried in the old green carpet and his pants soiled. The physical therapist helps him up, washes him, and then brings him painkillers. He hesitantly mentions an in-home nurse, just someone to watch Dean until he’s stronger, and Dean not so hesitantly tells him where to go.

Ultimately Dean knows Lucas is right. If nothing else he needs an emergency contact for when things get really bad. They told him the headaches could last for a year or longer, and the treacherous quality of his leg makes the concrete under the thin carpets downstairs a hazard he can’t afford. That doesn’t change how badly he wants to be independent.

Maybe he wasn’t so stubborn before the accident, who knows really, but whatever he used to be like now he can’t stand the thought of leaning on some stranger. Asking Lucas for help while he was there was hard enough.

One night in late September Dean’s sitting on the patio with Lucas sipping water and half-spaced on pain killers while the day dwindles past. It had been a hard session, and he aches everywhere through the haze of opiates. For a moment, he thinks Lucas’ voice is a little deeper, somewhat familiar, and he doesn’t hear what the physical therapist says, just the familiar tone.

“I said do you even have a snow shovel?”

He drags himself to the present and focuses in on Lucas’ salt and pepper beard.

“I have a shovel. I haven’t really looked in detail.” He frowns at his empty water. When had that happened?

Lucas shakes his head mournfully. “Dude, that’s not good. Look, let me go winter shopping for you and you can pay me back. I know what kind of supplies you need.”

“Yeah, whatever. There’s still a couple months before winter is gonna hit Lucas.”

The physical therapist laughs until his eyes are watering. “Maybe where you come from, but up here winter is just around the corner. Haven’t you noticed how cold it’s getting already?”

Dean had noticed the temperature dropping, the way the cold makes his knee ache right above his stump, but he didn’t think much of it at the time. Autumn had just really started, and he’s been enjoying the leaves changing color.

“I get it man. Just get the stuff and I’ll pay you back.”

“In the meantime, if you won’t consider getting help maybe you _will_ think about getting a hobby. Something to engage your mind and keep you from being so…reflective.”

He looks up at that, sees the way Lucas is focused on the neighbor’s house, and tries to find an appropriate response.

“What’s wrong with being reflective?”

Lucas sighs and rubs his thumb along the neck of his beer bottle. “Your doctors told you not to push the memory thing, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well constantly thinking about how your memory doesn’t work is pushing the memory thing. You need to get out. You need friends. You _need_ a hobby.”

“Shit Leon, I guess maybe I’ll take up knitting. You can come over; we can sit in a circle and chat about boys and our day.”

“Lucas.” Dean feels his cheeks go bright red, but Lucas is only smiling gently into the distance. “And my grandmother taught me to knit when I was six. I make an incredible set of mittens.”

He laughs off the shame of his slip, and considers making some concession in the interest of showing Lucas his gratitude.

 

 

\----

 

Dean avoids going to town as much as he can. While there isn’t much that he can’t find there, the setting is off-putting. The whole thing is designed as a hippie wonderland. There are permanent stalls set up for local vendors, an indoor organic food market, and almost fifty shops that brand themselves unique, vintage, handmade, and local. His bi-weekly shopping trips are done at speed, and with his breath held to avoid the stink of patchouli.

He’s limping towards his truck, listing slightly after yesterday’s session, when something catches his eye. Later Dean will think maybe the sun hit the gleaming metal just right, or maybe his prosthetic lost traction for half a second and he stumbled and turned. Whatever it was, accident, fate, Dean saw the metal and plastic and _knew_.

It’s a beast, weighs thirty pounds and takes up a great deal of space on his kitchen table, but Dean’s fingers slide over the ancient plastic keys reverently. He feels the need to use it, to start the tapping sound he’s heard in countless movies as some fedora wearing reporter breaks a big story and gets the girl.

Dean suddenly remembers he hasn’t watched a movie, has barely even seen full commercials since he woke up. The closest thing he has to an opinion on the media is that the Snuggles Bear is a demon. Still, he’s flooded with the sense that he has seen movies and they were black and white and had reporters with fedoras and giant press passes. It’s a good feeling, it comes with comfort and security, and his left hand moves out to the air beside him reaching for something he can’t remember or begin to name.

Which is when he comes crashing back to the reality that he is, for all intents and purposes, only a few months old. He draws the cover over the typewriter and limps to the stove to heat up soup and a grilled cheese.

 

\----

 

Lucas made it a point to show Dean where the salt bags and snow shovel were now stored, and Dean wakes up on the tenth day of October to see snow piled up outside of his window and gleaming in the sunlight.

He waits an hour to see if the snow will melt a little under the sun, but the light is too weak and the air too cold. Since today is his shopping day Dean picks up the shovel and heads to the back door so he can dig his truck out of the foot of snow. From here he can see that the neighbors’ drive is plowed, and that the driveway beyond has been taken care of too.

Snow-shoveling, Dean quickly learns, is a bullshit job. It’s hard on the back, the legs, and Dean doesn’t have the most stable of stances. It doesn’t help that he’s way too tall for the little shovel, and he spends most of his work bent over and angled to spare his leg some of the weight as he tries to clear a space. After an hour he’s fallen three times, and managed to move just enough snow to hate himself and the weather more than he did when he woke up.

His hands are numb, his pants cuffs are soaked, and his right leg is screaming in protest. Dean limps through the side door and gives up. He can make it another day or two, just until he can find someone to plow the driveway for him or for the snow to melt, and he unhooks his leg and slips into a warm bath.

There’s pain, cramping and screaming in his foot and hands as they come back to life, and Dean rubs them helplessly and wonders why he ever listened to Rebecca when she told him to come north. He’s slightly proud that he got her name right though.

The warmth of the bath and the cessation of pain combine to lull him into a trance state, and he’s halfway asleep when he hears the deep scraping noise. Dean stumbles out of the bath, dries off as quickly as he can and reattaches his prosthesis before limping to the back door. What he sees makes him stop dead in the cold air and stare.

Blonde neighbor is using a shovel to get what black neighbor misses with the plow attached to the front of her truck. Up close he can see that blonde neighbor is cute, little-girl pretty and wrapped in what looks like hand-knitted pink and purple gear, and her smile when she spots Dean is bright and wide.

The other woman is elegantly beautiful, a softer Grace Jones, who doesn’t smile at him but does nod his way before lowering the plow blade and driving forward.

Dean bursts into movement, both arms waving and shouting before his brain really engages. Both women freeze in place, the truck rumbling filling the sudden tense silence and Dean trying to remember what it was he was going to say. The blonde kicks in first.

“Hey neighbor! Zoe and I saw that you were having some trouble with-“

He steps forward and cuts her off with what must be a fairly imposing glare. The door to the truck creaks open and the second woman, Zoe apparently, steps out. She’s maybe an inch or two taller than him, and her jaw is tight with a tension the blonde doesn’t seem to be feeling.

“Look ladies, it’s nice of you to roll over here and help the cripple, but useless as I am I can hire a snowplow person.”

Zoe’s left hand balls into a fist and the little blonde steps nimbly in front of her with a smile still on her face, but less feeling behind it.

“Oh hey, yeah, no problem. Sorry we just get a little overeager to be neighborly. But since we’re almost finished maybe we could-“

“Hell no. Amy get in the truck. This prick doesn’t want help we don’t give it to him.”

Amy’s voice is pure sugar and sunshine, but Zoe’s is whiskey and the South. It makes Dean think of home in the obscure way he has. Whether that home is the place he can’t remember or the hospital in Atlanta he can’t be sure.

The women share a look, and then Zoe throws her hands up in disgust and storms back to the truck before taking off. Amy smiles fondly at the empty space before turning back to Dean.

“She gets a little touchy about the c-word. No big deal. Look, Mr. Hunt, we just wanted to be helpful alright? I’m sorry you took it wrong but-“

Cutting her off seems to be the new basis of their relationship.

“Your roommate’s too politically correct if the word cripple pisses her off. As for helping I-“

Now it’s Amy’s turn to cut in. A small, gloved hand rises into the air and her pink lips form a lopsided smile that is totally forced and a little sad.

“She gets offended because her right arm is a hand and ten inches short. Also, she’s my partner, for the last seven years. You have a nice day Mr. Hunt, and if you change your mind we’re in the phone book listed under Zigorski. I promise we’re the only ones.”

Amy flits off, feet finding easy traction on the mostly finished driveway, and Dean watches her reach the split in the driveways and turn left before he realizes that she knew his last name.

 

 

\----

 

 

Lucas is there a few days later sharing Dean’s stew and moaning over every spoonful.

“So you chose cooking as a hobby? Because this is excellent Dean. I could eat this for days.”

Dean breaks off a hunk of the bread he got at the bakery and butters it before he finds how he wants to word the next question.

“Did you tell the lesbians next door about me?”

For a moment Dean is honestly worried his physical therapist will choke to death on his stew. When he finally gets it under control though Lucas stares at him through watery eyes.

“Dean, please tell me you used that term for a reason other than homophobia.”

His defenses hit before his pride can argue. “No I can’t remember their names.”

All traces of animosity leave Lucas and he looks away to give Dean a moment to regroup.

“Amy and Zoe. Amy has a terrible joke about it that you’ll eventually hear. In the meantime though, just work on one name or the other. Or say the women next door. That would work too.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.” He pops a large chunk of stew beef into his mouth and chews while Lucas splutters and tries to figure out how to respond.

“Ye- maybe. Maybe I told them one or two things. Like you were new to the area, and in need of some friends. I might have done that.”

“And about my leg, or my…episodes?” Dean’s whole body is whipcord tight, because he honestly likes Lucas when he isn’t busy hating him for the amount of pain he deals out. If Lucas has betrayed his trust though...

“The leg. Not how, just that I was helping you with it. I’m Zoe’s physical therapist too, or I was before she stopped needing me. She’s the one your old nurse Rebecca treated. Zoe was in the same hospital as you once when her arm was amputated.”

He’s not happy about it, but Dean figures he can live with that.

“Well I don’t need to form a support group for cripples or anything so-“

“ _Dean Hunt_ , I have put up with your outbursts about my cologne, my potential sadism, and my love of Kenny G, but I will not sit here and listen to you denigrate yourself and my friend to nothing but your medical conditions. You’re more than a missing leg, idiot, and I don’t want you in a support group I want you to have _friends_. I’d like to be your friend honestly, but after the many times I’ve seen you vulnerable I doubt you’d allow that.”

Dean’s flabbergasted, utterly unable to come up with anything in response, and then finally he hears his voice sounding distant and stupid.

“I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know if I’ve ever had any.”

“Well you’re learning to cook, and you’re learning to cope, so maybe you can learn to buddy up with people.” Lucas’s smile is warm and honest. “Especially if you feed them like this all the time.”

They go back to their stew, conversation turning light and easy, and Dean considers the many options he has for apologizing to the neighbors.

 

\----

 

It takes a week for Dean to figure out how to make amends. The early snow has melted at that point, but temperatures are still incredibly low. Dean’s learned to live with the constant ache that the weather inspires, and he goes to town and buys the most non-homeopathic, over-the-counter painkiller he can in the interest of not being drugged out all the time.

The day he stands in the kitchen for two hours baking cupcakes from scratch the sky has turned cloudy and the wind is rattling the dry leaves off of their branches and driving them into the windows. He honestly can’t tell if it’s the sound or the fact that he has no idea if they’ll accept his peace offering, but Dean’s on high alert the whole time.

He’s in the middle of icing a cupcake when a high-pitched noise cuts through his internal repetition of the website’s icing tips. Dean drops the knife and limps quickly to the door. Something about the sound, a cry of desperation and sorrow, makes his blood run cold and his hands shake.

His back door opens on a yard full of nothing, no one is there, and Dean isn’t sure what he was expecting. Except then he looks down to see a puppy, about the size of his boot, sitting on the doorstep and looking up at him hopefully as it whines pathetically.

Something clenches in Dean’s chest at those big brown eyes, and he bends down without thinking and scoops the puppy up.

The little ball of fur trembles in his grip, turns those pleading eyes up again, and thumps its tail weakly against his wrist as it licks tentatively at his hand. Dean’s heart just about breaks when the puppy finds a bit of icing and goes at licking his fingers with gusto.

There’s no telling where it came from, or what it might be carrying with it, but the puppy is staying here. Dean knows that already. He rubs idly at the thing’s bony ribs under thick fur before heading into the kitchen.

“I don’t have any dog food puppy. I don’t really have anything. Plus, I can barely take care of myself. You’re gonna have to help me out here. I don’t even know if I like dogs.”

The puppy tilts its head and gives him a quizzical look. Dean’s chest clenches again, and he speaks without thinking.

“My brother could give you this puppy-dog look and you’d just buy right into it.”

He wakes up an hour later according to the clock on the microwave, with the puppy licking his face and whining piteously, and a headache much like those first ones.

Dean doesn’t remember what he said.

 

\---

 

He gives it another shot the next day. He can’t remember the exact name the woman gave him, but he flips through the fairly thin phone book until he finds an address near his. It starts with a z, and that feels right.

The phone rings twice, and then the bright voice he recognizes as Ann answers. “Hello neighbor!”

A full three seconds pass before Dean’s internal voice says, _caller id_ , and he relaxes.

“Hi, hey, uh-“

“You want to come over here or have me come over there? Zoe’s at work, but maybe that’s good. I can get to know you a bit, and then pretend I was vetting you and you passed.”

They settle on her coming over, Dean doesn’t thank her for not making a big deal of giving his leg a break, and then he puts a bowl of milk soaked chow down for Bonham and places the cupcakes on the table as if they were always sitting there.

Dean answers the door on the first knock, wiping his hands on his jeans, and then gestures for her to follow him into the kitchen. Ally slips her knit hat off exposing golden curls before she drops into a chair and plucks up a cupcake.

“So, your apology is baked goods? Feel free to be rude any time.” Her smile is bright, and Dean feels his own lips quirk in answer.

“Don’t get used to it. I might not regret next time.”

Her lips part in a shocked “o” and then one hand settles on her chest. “If anything you’ll feel worse once you get to know me. Zoe says I’m just like a kid and that makes – oh my god puppy dog!”

Her hands, not much bigger than the puppy itself, lift the squirming bundle and she buries her face in his fur as she murmurs and laughs.

“Oh yes, yes, most adorable, yes, puppy kisses and puppy breath, oh my god! I’m going to steal you and take you home and name you Sunny for the sunshine. Yes I will sweet girl!”

“Him. His name is Bonham. You’re not stealing him.”

Bright blue eyes peer over fluffy brown fur wickedly. “Her, Dean. That’s her vulva. Boy puppies have a penis closer to the center, girl puppies have vulva that go inside. Also, you cannot name a puppy after an alcoholic drummer. We’ll compromise, we’ll name her Bonnie. Bonnie Tyler.”

“I am not – why would I need to agree with you on what to name my dog?” He’s amused despite himself, and she seems to pick up on the difference in tone. Her grin is so big it has dimples.

“Because I’m going to help you raise her, and take her for walkies, and teach her a ton of tricks. Oh! And buy little ribbons for her ears. Pink ribbons. You’ll like those won’t you.”

Dean bites into a cupcake and slumps back into his chair. “Is this how you make friends? Steal their dog’s love and take over their lives?”

The blue studies him again and practically sparkles. “Yes.”

 

\---

 

Amy, not Ann or Ally, is apparently not joking. She becomes a fixture in Dean’s house, and the first thing she does is proclaim they’re going furniture shopping. Dean points out that he has a kitchen table, a computer desk, and a bed, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for her.

When Dean’s response is that he doesn’t want to spend a couple grand on handmade hippy furniture Amy gives him a loud sigh and pats his shoulder softly.

“That’s why we don’t go into the tourist town.”

It turns out the whole time Dean was struggling with the smell of patchouli and overpriced trinkets there was another town about five miles away that the locals used, as opposed to the tourist trap he’s been visiting. There’s a regular supermarket that carries preservative laden food and real sugar, a pharmacy with pharmaceuticals, and an Ashley store they spend two hours in.

Amy directs the delivery men where to place the furniture, pink mouth pursed as she judges distances and placement. Dean watches helplessly with Bonnie in his arms as his house becomes a home. After the men leave Amy pushes him into the big armchair he picked and then makes the worst casserole he’s ever tasted.

“I’m sorry Dean. Zoe’s the cook. I promise from now on Zoe will cook.”

Dean turns a forkful over and then forces a smile. “It’s – uh it’s fine.”

She shakes her head sadly and puts another forkful away. “Anyway, what’s with the ancient typewriter?”

He looks over to the machine, still taking up space on his kitchen table, and then back to her curious gaze.

“Lucas thought I needed a hobby. To get me out of my head. I thought I’d try writing.”

Amy’s smile is back despite her mouthful of cheese glop. “Oh? How’s it going? Are you the next Hemingway?”

He thinks of the pages of nonsense, stories about ghosts and monsters, all of them full of blood and suffering, and a protagonist that is searching for someone he can’t seem to find or live without.

“No. It’s crap. But it means I’m not just sitting around thinking of how I can’t remember anything.”

One blonde eyebrow lifts delicately as Amy pushes her plate away.

“Head injury on top of the leg?”

They’ve never discussed it, and Dean wonders how many times he’s called her the wrong name and she hasn’t said anything out of kindness.

“Doesn’t matter. I deal. When am I gonna get my do-over on your partner?”

Amy bites her lip for a second before putting her fork down. “Zoe is…grumpy sometimes. She holds grudges. It’s nothing personal and she’ll totally get over it, but until that happens you just got to let her get there on her own. She doesn’t like to be pushed.”

“And yet she’s with you?”

He manages to duck the flying casserole just in time.

 

\---

 

If asked the top five ways he wanted to meet Zoe this would not have been in the extended one hundred list.

Dean has a bad day, which begins with Bonnie destroying his shoe and then leads to some sort of memory. If it’s any indication of what Dean’s life was like before maybe he doesn’t want his memories back.

_He’s in a backyard, very young, and his arms ache horribly as he tries to hold up a gun and hit a target. A man, shadowy but there, leans over his shoulder and speaks in a gruff voice._

_“You can do this Dean. You gotta do this to protect Sammy. Stay stable, hold the gun the way I showed you, and squeeze the trigger don’t pull it.”_

_The gun kicks, and Dean takes a face full of hot metal before landing on his ass. He’s crying, shaking, and the shadowy man sounds sorry and disgusted at the same time._

_“Okay kiddo. We’ll start again tomorrow with a smaller caliber. Let’s get some ice on your face now.”_

_The scene shifts, a run-down house and a baby, and Dean is waving a spoon around and making airplane noises through his cotton-stuffed nose._

_“C’mon Sammy, open up for the airplane so you can grow big and strong.”_

“Come on Dean, eyes open. Eyes open.”

Amy is in his face, eyes wide and skin pale, and two arms are hooked under his armpits as he’s being drug across the carpet.

For a moment Dean almost lashes out against the force pulling him, and then that urge subsides and all that is left is the need to throw up, immediately and as hard as possible, in an attempt to expel the little marching band living in his skull.

The whiskey and honey voice of Amy’s partner comes over his shoulder. “Get a cold rag and his meds baby girl, and a bucket.”

Amy disappears, and Dean is settled into the comfy armchair before Zoe crouches down in front of him.

“You know where you are Dean?”

“Home. Hurts.” He grabs at the hand closest to him and touches fake flesh before Zoe replaces it with a real one.

“Yep. Good guess. You get these spells often?”

“Enough.”

Amy reappears and drops down at his side with the cold rag, but Dean pushes it away in favor of the bucket, loses breakfast and some extra, and then lets Amy settle him back and drape the damp coolness over his eyes.

“Okay Dean, okay we got you. It’s alright now.” Her voice is soothing, soft, and Dean is lost for a moment.

“Rebecca, it’s bad.”

“Yeah, it’s bad. I can see that.” Hands brush through his hair and settle on his temples before fingertips begin a gentle rotation. “But it’s going to get better.”

Pills press to his lips, and Dean gratefully swallows them and wishes they would use the IV. It’s faster. Slowly, surely, the world goes dark and the pain is as distant a memory as the baby he once loved and fed.

 

\----

 

Dean wakes to a dark living room, the sound of a door closing, and the smell of something delicious. His leg buckles on his first try to get out of the chair, but eventually he manages to limp to the kitchen where Zoe is making stir fry. Her velvety brown eyes take him in for a moment before she points to the table and goes back to flipping rice in a pan.

“Sorry ‘bout that.” He sounds wrecked, and Dean wonders if he screamed at them the way he used to in Atlanta.

Zoe’s mouth twists once in an expression Dean knows very well, and she flicks off the oven and dumps the rice into one of the serving bowls Amy made him buy.

“You should be. I could tell how much you were enjoying it. Hey, while you’re apologizing for things you shouldn’t I hear the Kennedy assassination is still up for grabs.”

“You’re kinda bitchy huh?”

Zoe tosses the chopped vegetables into the skillet before looking Dean’s way.

“And you’re kind of a prick, but we’re gonna get along just fine ‘cause my girl insists we will. She’s unfortunately always right ‘bout that kinda thing.”

“Or she makes herself right?” Zoe’s eyes fly up to catch his and she starts laughing with a surprised look on her face. Dean joins her.

When Amy comes through the door to find them like that her smile is overwhelming.

 

\----

 

“So, it’s time to share war stories.”

Their nightly ritual now is to dine together, Dean and Zoe taking turns at cooking while Amy plays with Bonnie or attempts to help. She’s not terrible at chopping things.

Dean finishes massaging the rub into the chicken and slides the pan into the oven.

“Is it? I missed the memo.” He reaches down and adjusts the leg of his pants, a habit he’s picked up and hates. “Maybe we should focus on mashed potatoes.”

Amy looks up from where she’s peeling potatoes. “We could do that.”

“I was a firefighter in Atlanta. Went into an apartment building where they had been paying off their inspector. Beam collapsed and pinned me down for about five minutes until one of my brothers came in and dragged me out, but the damage was done.” Zoe’s face is set, challenging and sure, and Dean bristles at the idea that he’ll back out if she can talk so easily about her own damage.

“Car accident. Bounced my head on the pavement and got pinned under the car. Sister died.”

Zoe is watching him thoughtfully, and Dean almost says something further, something cutting, but he hears a sniff behind him. When he turns he sees that Amy is crying, big fat tears, and the knife is forgotten on the cutting board as she knuckles at her eyes.

She steps forward, throws her arms around Dean, and he’s frozen in place as the little body presses against him.

“Dean, oh Dean, I’m so sorry. Is that the picture in your living room? You must miss her so much.”

He doesn’t say he doesn’t remember her. He thinks instead of the baby in his memory, of sliding the spoon into her tiny mouth and then wiping the food off her chin. Why was he in charge of feeding her at such a young age? Were they just that close? Was he an overprotective big brother, did he love her to distraction? He thinks he did.

For the first time since Dean woke up in the hospital he lets himself be comforted.

 

\---

 

They’re crossing the street, and Dean sees what’s coming long before Amy does. She’s too busy tilting her head back to catch snowflakes on her tongue as Bonnie pulls on her leash.

He grabs her at the last second, hooking his fingers into her shirt and pulling her back to avoid the big classic car that almost runs her over. The driver is hard to see with how the sun is shining off the windshield, but Dean gets the impression of a shocked stare. It probably scared him as bad as it has scared Dean, but his temper gets the better of him and he slaps the hood of the car with a pang of regret.

“Watch it asshole!”

Amy pulls on him, gives an apologetic wave at the driver, and then leads Dean across the street to the supermarket.

“You saved my life.” Her expression is just as sweet and open as always, but something about the words gives Dean a rush along with a cold chill. “You’re my hero.”

There’s something familiar about this, something that strikes at Dean’s core, and he takes a breath before pulling her into a hug.

The car lingers with him. He honestly believes he must have been some kind of mechanic, and maybe that’s why he appreciates it so much. Clean lines, beautiful black paint job, chrome and steel containing all that horsepower. He thinks of his truck, fairly modern and clean, but man, he’d love to drive something like that.

“What kind of car was that? I’ve never seen one like it before.” Amy’s already ducking through the door, laughing when Bonnie barks at the bell ringing. How she talked the owner into letting her bring the dog in Dean still doesn’t know.

“A ’67 Chevy Impala.” It rolls off his tongue like a prayer. “One of the best cars ever made.”

Blue eyes cut to him and then light up. “Oh my god you’re a car fanatic. And here I thought the only machinery you got excited about was that old Underwood.”

“They’re both excellent machines.” He watches her drop noodles into the cart, and reaches in to pull out the angel hair and replace it with linguine. “Show some respect.”

Amy rolls her eyes and adds angel hair on top of the linguine. “Blah, blah, men love machines. Stereotype.”

“I’ve been in your house and accidentally found your goodie drawer. You ladies love machines too.”

She has the grace to blush even as she sticks her tongue out and pulls Bonnie away from the meat case.

 

\----

 

It is officially Christmas time. Dean gets picked to make the roast, and he spends ten hours hovering near the kitchen to check its progress. There’s two feet of snow outside, and Amy is supposed to be coming to pick him up at some point. Bonnie dances side to side in front of the stove smelling the air and barking excitedly.

Dean finally gets sick of waiting and packs the roast up before attaching Bonnie’s leash. They had to go to special training classes, because Bonnie can pull him off balance without really trying. She hangs close, obedient but desperate, and Dean shakes his head fondly.

“You’re gonna get meat mutt, so give it a rest.” Bonnie’s big eyes admonish him, and when he comes out of the house into the cold air there’s a moment of breathlessness before he adjusts to the temperature change. He begins limping down the driveway, unable to handle the treacherous terrain between the houses, only to see Amy parked at the end of his driveway and standing outside of her truck as she chats with someone wrapped in a giant parka.

 

Her head turns towards Dean, and she smiles and gives a big wave. Parka guy half turns, sees Dean, and then runs for it into the snow.


	2. Chapter 2

“What the hell do you mean he took off when he saw Dean? Like he took off into the woods?”

They’re sitting in the dining room, Amy’s gaudy and overly decorated tree winking at them as Bonnie eats her allotment of roast with loud slurping noises. She’s the only one interested in the food.

Amy plays with her mashed potatoes, cheeks flushed and eyes focused on her plate.

“Well, maybe he’s shy.”

“Or maybe he’s a dangerous axe murderer, because being shy doesn’t explain tramping through the damn woods in negative twelve degree weather with two feet of snow on the damn ground.”

“He said his car broke down at the road, and he was – Dean you saw him. Tell her he wasn’t an axe murderer.”

Dean thinks of the size of the guy. To be fair, Amy is just below five feet and a lot of people look big next to her, but this guy was huge. Towering over her tiny body, wrapped in the big parka, who knew how big the guy really was or how easy it would be for him to hurt her. Could Dean have gotten there in time to stop him? To save her?

His eyes travel down to where his prosthetic ankle peeks under the hem of his jeans.

“Amy, Sweetheart, best case scenario the guy’s a little off his rocker if he’s wandering around in this weather. Worst case? He’s dangerous. If he shows up again you should get Zoe or me.”

Amy licks her lips and puts her fork down before looking up at the two of them.

“You two don’t understand. He wasn’t dangerous and he wasn’t off, he was _sad_. You didn’t see him, but I did. He looked…he looked heartbroken and lost. The guy might have been lying about his car, but he wasn’t lying about needing help.”

Zoe slams her fist into the table. “No. I put up with the stray cats in the workshop, and the charity soup kitchens where you’ve been pushed and groped, but this isn’t some stray you can fix up and send to a new home. You promise me, _promise_ me Amy, that you’ll get someone if you see him again.”

Suddenly the air is tense, and Dean isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. Even Bonnie has stopped eating in favor of watching the two women. He rubs the back of his neck before butting in, wise or not.

“Maybe we could make a compromise. Just because you need to get someone doesn’t mean you need to run him off. We won’t call the cops or anything, but we just don’t want you there alone. Not with somebody that big that we don’t know.”

Brown eyes glare at him, but Amy relaxes.

“Okay. I’ll be careful.”

The rest of dinner passes tense but not unbearable. Afterwards Dean is clearing the table, and he limps into the kitchen to see Amy at the sink with Zoe’s arms around her, murmuring too soft and low to be heard properly.

Zoe plants gentle kisses in Amy’s hair, and Dean catches the side of Amy’s face when she looks up and smiles. It’s strained, but full of love, and he’s pretty sure he’s never felt more alone.

\---

Amy’s beside him on the couch, fire roaring in the fireplace and Bonnie snoring over her new chew bone, while they wait on Zoe to finish her phone calls.

“How much family does she have?” He’s going light on the whiskey in deference to his painkillers, but Amy’s had enough to have her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.

“Lots. Four brothers, her mom and dad, and then she’s gotta call the old firehouse and talk to _those_ brothers. It’s gonna take a while.” Amy pours herself another drink and leans against Dean’s shoulder. He’s gotten used to her touchy-feelyness.

“When are you going to call your family?” Dean feels her shift slightly and then sees her hand lift to the side of her face as she mocks the sound of a phone ringing.

He waits several seconds, and when that’s all she does he makes a guess.

“Hello?”

“Hi Dean! Merry Christmas!” When she looks up Amy is still smiling, and he thinks it’s a little heartbreaking.

He considers telling her he’s the same way, but she already knows that.

“What happened to them?”

Amy’s head tilts as she considers her glass. “Damnedest thing. Turns out they weren’t really okay with the gay thing or the interracial thing. So they gave me a choice.” She doesn’t finish, but she doesn’t need to. The house is littered with pictures of the two women over the years, happy and in love and Dean wonders if Amy really lost much.

“I had a memory. Of feeding a baby. The first word I knew was Sammy, but my sister’s name was Pamela. The doctors thought it was my injured brain crossing wires, but I don’t know. Sammy feels _right_ you know? So much feels wrong, fake, but Sammy feels right.”

“Maybe Sammy was someone else. Someone you loved just as much if not more than your sister. Maybe Sammy didn’t know about the accident and now she or he is trying to find you.” Amy’s eyes get dreamy and distant. “Then the two of you will meet in a crowded hospital and you’ll call out to each other and all your memories will come flooding back as you crash together in-“

“That’s the third season finale of _Dr. Sexy M.D._ How the hell do I know that?”

“Because you’re the kind of idiot who would remember a TV show instead of his life. Ames, my mom wants to talk to you about New Year’s.”

Zoe switches places with her girlfriend on the couch and then Amy is bouncing out of the room on her usual wave of energy. When the little blonde is gone Zoe turns grave eyes on Dean.

“She’s really attached to you.”

Dean blinks several times before he finds his voice. “I like her too.”

“I’m gonna ask her to marry me tonight. It’s been legal for a few years in Massachusetts. Momma is distracting her while I give you the heads-up. You know that trick Bonnie does when you whistle for her?”

“That’s not a trick she just comes when anybody whistles.”

Zoe’s face goes sour and she slaps his shoulder.

“Shut up and get your mangy dog in the other room with this tied around her neck, then whistle her in when I give you the signal.”

Dean laughs as he ties the little bag around Bonnie’s neck before luring her into the kitchen. He comes back to find Amy doling out presents from under the tree. She hands Dean a stack with that delighted, half-drunk flush before plopping into Zoe’s lap and adjusting her Santa hat.

“Presents, presents, I love presents!”

Zoe ends up with a new knife from Dean, that Amy and he swear brings tears to her eyes, and a box she opens and quickly closes from Amy before kissing her girl and whispering in her ear. Amy’s flush becomes a full crimson as she giggles and shoots Dean an apologetic look.

His gift from them is a huge box containing cookware he’s mentioned wanting, ribbons and paper for his typewriter, and a thick leather jacket that Zoe says, “Fits you. So wear it.”

Amy opens the box Dean left her under the tree and squints into it for a long time.

“You got me…you got me…” She looks up, eyes full of tears, and then launches across the couch onto his lap and wraps her arms around his neck squealing in a pitch that has him terrified Bonnie will come running in any second.

Zoe is pulling the sock monkey out of the box, eyes bright with amusement as she watches her girlfriend assault Dean.

The monkey is second-hand, a little worn, but it fits the description of the purple and pink socks Amy’s grandmother used to create her favorite childhood toy. The same toy Amy once told him was her favorite and was then stolen and destroyed by a neighborhood boy a month after her grandmother died.

Amy turns over her shoulder and addresses Zoe happily. “Well, it looks like I’m leaving you for Dean. You cannot top this.”

Zoe’s jaw hardens for a second and then she catches Dean’s eye and nods. He whistles, Bonnie comes running, and Zoe grabs Amy with her good hand and drags her back into her arms.

“You’re ruining the mood baby girl.”

Her face shows her confusion as she looks between Bonnie, Dean, and Zoe.

“What mood? The present mood? How do you ruin present mood Zoe, it’s Christmas, the mood is automatically set.”

Zoe’s lips brush Amy’s ear. “Shush. Technically your present is you giving me a present. Namely you, forever, as my wife.”

Dean clicks his fingers and Bonnie bounds close enough that Amy can see the ring bag hanging around her neck. There’s a noise, nothing like what Dean was expecting, and then Amy is grabbing at Zoe’s forearms.

“No. No you didn’t. Did you? Is that – because if – I mean I don’t want to-“ She cuts off in a thick noise as Dean unties the bag and opens it since Zoe can’t free her hands.

The ring is moonstone, cut beautifully and set in what is either silver or white gold. Dean can’t tell. What he does know is Zoe nods at him and he slips the ring out of the bag and slides it onto Amy’s finger.

Amy’s lips are trembling, hands shaking, and she turns and locks onto her fiancé tightly. They’re not kissing; Amy is just holding herself tight against Zoe’s neck and murmuring yes over and over again.

Dean takes the silent hint when Zoe holds the keys to the truck out to him. He gives her a thumbs-up, and she grins broadly and nods. With that he slips out of the scene and limps to the truck with Bonnie at his side.

He’s drifting, musing about how the night went as he takes the driveway slow and steady, and maybe that’s why he isn’t sure if the shape he sees is a tree casting a shadow or a man slipping into the woods. Dean hits the brakes, coming to a stop and peering out over the landscape, illuminated by moonlight bouncing off white snow, but he can’t find it again.

The short trip from the truck to his door is done on high alert, one hand gripping Bonnie’s leash tight and the other fumbling his keys to get the right one ready.

In perfect horror movie fashion he drops the keys at the door, bends for them, and his treacherous leg gives and sends him crashing to the concrete patio. All the warmth and joy from Ally and Zelda’s flees him, and Dean is in a cold tunnel, water dripping as he screams _Sammy_ over and over again.

\----

Dean doesn’t remember getting inside, but somehow he did. He wakes up wrapped in blankets and wearing sweats and a t-shirt. He must have blacked out, changed into pajamas, and gotten into bed, but how he can’t say.

His head aches fiercely, and his mouth tastes terrible. Maybe he threw up, maybe he just forgot to brush, but whatever it is he finds himself gargling mouthwash for several minutes before he can even imagine doing something else.

Bonnie greets him in the kitchen, big brown eyes worried and anxiety underlined by her untouched full food bowl. He fed his dog before he went to bed too. Dean sits at the table and idly scratches behind her ears as he considers the many things he apparently did with no recollection.

He ends up on the phone with Lucas, even though the man is not a doctor and probably not qualified to answer his questions.

“Hey, Lucas, you remember how you told me you’d handled other head injury patients?”

A throat clears in the background on the other end and Lucas hushes someone before answering.

_“Yeah man. I’ve had a couple, including some contra coup. Why, what’s up?”_

“They warned me about the memory thing and the word problem-“

_“Aphasia. And that’s not supposed to be happening a lot. Is it happening a lot?”_

He tries to remember what he thought his friends’ names were when he got to the door last night, but it escapes him.

“No. It’s something else. No big deal, but…what about black outs? Do black outs happen a lot?”

_“Define black outs Dean. What kind of black outs?”_

Bonnie licks his hand and Dean jumps before he remembers that Lucas can’t see how freaked out he is. He can still play this off.

“Well, to be fair, I was drinking-“

_“Drinking? With your medication? Well then no wonder idiot. Stop that. It’s really bad for you and-“_

“Merry Christmas Mom. I’ll do better I promise.”

Lucas laughs before he returns the sentiment and ends the call. He turns to Bonnie and gives her his full attention.

“Well it had to be me, right girl? Not like I have helpful elves or something.”

His laughter sounds hollow and flat in the empty space.

\----

Dean manages to gracefully bow out of travelling with Amy and Zoe to Atlanta for New Year’s. Amy buys that the city has too many painful memories, but Zoe gives him a suspicious and sad look.

He spends the next week working on his story. It begins to have some kind of focus. His protagonist is sweet, frightened, and desperate to escape the cycle of violence his family is trapped in. The voice comes strong, overtakes Dean as he sits in front of the typewriter, and he loses whole hours slamming keys as young Jared abandons his brother and father to go to Stanford and try to live a normal life.

At the end of every writing session Dean finds himself shakily swallowing opiates as his head screams. It’s like a watered-down version of the blow-outs he gets after a memory, but one never comes while he’s typing.

His days are broken up by trips into town, and Dean becomes friendly with the owner of the local diner. Walt is old, gruff, and appreciates Dean’s steadily growing appetite. The food is just the right mixture of greasy and fresh, and Dean gains an appreciation for pie that he may have had before the accident. Walt tells him the pie is new, an addition brought on by the short-order cook they just picked up, and Dean swears one day he’ll meet the kid and thank him personally.

When Amy and Zoe come back he’s got fifty pages typed, and refuses to let them see any of them. Amy whines and needles, but Dean resists her charms.

Dean begins to spend his afternoons in Amy’s workshop, scribbling notes on a legal pad as he watches her weld together metal. Zoe spends her days working at a non-profit for the widows of firefighters, and Amy creates expansive metal sculptures. At the moment she’s working on a commission for a local children’s hospital, and Dean loves to watch as she cuts individual feathers out of sheet metal for the angel’s wings and welds each one on with care.

Halfway through the day Amy insists on taking a break, makes a sandwich and pours soup into a thermos, and then takes off with Bonnie. She won’t let Dean come with her, swears the walk alone does her good, and Dean spends the time typing out what he’s been working on and clarifying the story.

At least that’s how it goes for about a month, until the day Amy comes back from the walk with the man he saw before Christmas in tow.

Dean’s already up, out of his chair and limping at speed as Amy waves happily like she hasn’t made a huge mistake. Closer now than he was before Dean can see that guy has at least three inches on him, and if the boniness of his face is any indication the parka only gives him the illusion of bulk.

He makes it to her side quickly and pulls, Bonnie barking in confusion as he maneuvers her behind him.

“Who are you?”

Hurt flashes in hazel eyes, a mixture of greens, blues, and browns that almost make Dean double-take, and pink lips twist downward. The guy is a kid, younger than Dean and probably younger than Amy, and something about the angles of his face and the placement of moles calls to Dean. Makes him want to take back the harshness of his tone so that those big, expressive eyes don’t look so sad.

“I – I’m sorry I-“

Amy pushes past him and grabs the fluffy sleeve of the guy’s parka before pulling him towards the house.

“Go inside and get warm. Bathroom is to the right and the kitchen is to the left. Find the hot chocolate mix and the kettle and get that started. Dean and I will join you in just a minute.”

The kid stumbles along; eyes locked on Dean until he bangs into the door and fumbles it open.

“Dean Hunt, you be polite. He’s half-frozen and in need of a little kindness. Plus, he was terrified of meeting you.” Amy’s face is stern, a foreign expression on her, and Dean pulls back from it in surprise.

“Terrified of meeting me? What about him. Amy this is exactly what you promised-“ His voice cuts off at her suddenly guilty expression. Realization begins to dawn, and Amy cements it with her next words.

“Bonnie was with me.”

“You’ve been walking my dog every day to take him soup and a sandwich. You’ve been meeting him every day with nothing but Bonnie, the worst guard dog in history.”

Amy’s mouth twists, prelude to a bad joke, and then settles before it comes out. Dean’s expression may be part of the reason she knows better than to make it.

“He’s living in a car Dean. In the winter. He’s cold, hungry, and in need. If you and Zoe would just get to know him you’d see-“

“That he’s some bum that could have hurt you! You don’t know him Amy, and that makes him a stranger. Didn’t your parents ever teach you about stranger danger?”

She flushes and then waves an angry hand.

“You have a choice. You can stay and make sure he doesn’t hurt me, which means being polite, or you can go and wait for Zoe to come home and tattle on me. It’s up to you, but I’m going inside and making sure he warms up.”

Dean ends up stumping in after her.

The kid is sitting at the kitchen table, long legs folded awkwardly underneath it and hands restlessly moving against each other. With the parka off it’s obvious he hasn’t been eating regularly in a long time, and the double layers of plaid and thermal don’t hide the long angular lines of his body. His hair, brown and wavy, falls into his eyes and covers them as he avoids Dean’s assessing gaze.

Amy disappears for a moment and comes back with a bag she plops down in front of the bum along with a picture.

“That’s me, and that’s Zoe.” She points to both and then directs her goofy smile at Dean. “We’re A to Z.”

Her terrible joke, the one Lucas warned him about, and the kid is startled into laughter that dies when his eyes briefly meet Dean’s.

“And that’s Dean. Dean Hunt our neighbor and my bestie. He looks intimidating, but he’s just a big puppy dog like Bonnie. Never hurt anybody in his life.”

The kid chokes on something, eyes moving to her in disbelief before it’s quickly covered again by his hair. Dean bristles.

“You got something to say kid?”

Amy’s elbow catches his ribs and then she’s settling down in the chair opposite the guy.

“Dean, this is Sam Winchester. He’s our new friend, and he’s very excited to be here.”

\----

Sam turns out to be very quiet. Amy carries the conversation almost entirely, telling Sam about the proposal, about her art, and about the commune.

“So a couple miles down the road is our nearest neighbor who’s a ceramics sculptor, she’s awesome but a little off, and then there’s a guy that makes found object art, he’s violent stay away, and-“

“Why are you living in your car out here?”

Sam jerks again, he always seems to do that when Dean talks, and then his fingers rub briskly at his bony knees as he looks to Amy.

“I- uh- this was far enough out I didn’t think the police would do anything about me sleeping in my car.”

“You’re a drifter right? No home, no family, just place to place working small jobs? Why come to the north in winter for that? You could have picked someplace warm like Florida or Georgia.”

Sam winces and Amy practically hisses at him.

“Dean, shut up. Jesus, Sam didn’t come for the-“

“No, it’s ok. It’s fair and he’s just trying to protect you.” Sam’s voice is so sad when he says the last part that Dean thinks the kid may be crying, but when he looks up his face is set and determined. “I was looking for someone. I just kind of ran out of money here.”

Dean raises an eyebrow at that. “Did you find them?”

Sam’s eyes dart to the side and then back again. “Yes. Yes I did.”

“And?”

Amy’s bristling, rising, but Sam turns to her and gives a sad smile that makes Dean’s chest clench tight the way it did when he first saw Bonnie.

“He didn’t remember me. Which is okay. I’m okay with that as long as he’s happy.”

“And is he happy?” Later, when Amy interrogates him about this moment Dean won’t be able to say what it is that makes him keep asking these questions. Something about the sad turn to Sam’s lips, the way his chin holds steady despite the wet look to his eyes.

“I think so.”

\----

Tattling becomes a non-issue. Zoe comes home early.

Several things happen at once, and each one with a slow and startling clarity that haunts Dean when he’s in bed that night.

The door creaks, Zoe steps into the kitchen, and the room reacts in a way that is totally reasonable and yet seems like a series of explosions. Bonnie jumps up, Amy turns, Sam jerks, and Dean starts to rise. It’s the combination of the last two that set off the rest of it. Sam’s hand brushes Dean’s, and the world cants.

_It’s all heat and fear. Fire rages down the hall, in the nursery, but even here he can feel it. Mommy is missing, gone somewhere he can’t see, and Dad is holding a bundle out to him and shouting. The words aren’t clear, don’t make any sense, they should be getting Mommy, but Dean obeys. He always obeys, because Mommy told him angels are watching and he wants to be good under their gaze._

_He wants the angels to show up now. He wants them to be carrying Mommy into the open so he can see her, and he wants them to put the fire out because while Sammy is okay he’s going to need a room to sleep in. Maybe he can sleep in Dean’s room. They’ll stay together in his bed and Dean won’t have to sneak into Sammy’s room anymore at night to make sure his little chest is still rising and falling._

_He’s been doing that since Marcus Weatherby told him that sometimes babies die in their sleep for no reason._

_No angels appear though, and Dean stands out on the lawn bouncing his brother and cooing while he waits for something more. Then the windows blow out, the fire expands, and Dad comes stumbling out before the fire trucks arrive._

_Dean knows before Dad says it. He holds Sammy a little closer, hopes that maybe the circle of his arms can protect his baby brother from a world without Mommy. A world without angels._

“Dean? Dean, wake up please?”

He’s being held. Whoever it is smells like diner food, leather, and sweat. It’s comforting, familiar in a way he can’t explain or understand, and he pushes into it instinctively.

“He’s back.” The voice rumbles through the chest his face is pressed into, and Dean is too tired and in too much pain to try to pull away after he figures out it’s Sam holding him off the floor.

Amy swims into his vision when she turns his face to the dimmed light coming through the window and peers into his eyes.

“You fell, and you almost hit your head but it turns out Sam has lightening reflexes.” Her fingers brush his cheeks gently. “You threw up, and then you started crying. We almost called an ambulance.”

She sounds little-girl lost, looks it too, and Dean reaches out and pulls her into him without thinking about it. Now she’s wrapped in his arms, and he’s still in Sam’s. It should be weird, but it’s not.

“I’m okay, Sweetheart. I’m okay. Sorry, I scared you. All of you.”

Zoe bends down and makes hand gestures until Amy has left him and she can hook her elbows under Dean’s armpits and pull him up onto his feet. He leans on her just long enough for Sam to push a chair into place, and then Dean sinks into it and accepts the water and pills Zoe hands him.

Dean doesn’t miss the way Sam pats Amy’s wringing hands, or how Zoe glares at the action.

The world keeps going out of focus, makes him feel fuzzy and sick, and it takes a long time for him to get stable again. His head is pounding, stomach churning, and it’s worse than it’s ever been before. Amy hops onto the table and takes the position to rub at his temples. Her voice is low and soft.

“Do you remember what you remembered? It must have been really bad Dean.”

He doesn’t. There’s a vague impression of heat, something scary and living in the dark, and one concrete conclusion from all of it.

“I remember that there are no angels.”

Amy’s face is confused, but behind her shoulder Dean catches a glimpse of Sam, face drawn and eyes heavy.

“Okay Dean, that’s nice but I really think we gotta get you to a doctor. That was pretty extreme wasn’t it?” Zoe looks ashen, hand rubbing her short curls and giving away her nervousness. “Ames and I can drive you, and then we’ll just get it checked out.”

“No. I’m fine I just want to go home and sleep. I just have a headache; I don’t need to be mothered.”

“They’re right. You should see a doctor.” Sam’s voice is heavy, and Dean doesn’t care for it. Who is he to worry about Dean? They just met.

Zoe picks up on it. “Alright new guy, that’s enough. You should head back to your car or whatever and-“

“Zoe. Stop.” Amy’s anger is unexpected and new. She turns to Sam. “You go upstairs. You’re gonna crash in our guest room. Dean, you’re sleeping in the downstairs one and there’ll be no arguments. We’re going to monitor you, and if you have another episode you’re going straight to the ER. Zoe take him there. I’m making a sandwich.”

With that she dismisses them, and in a moment that only proves she has some sort of magical powers the three of them obey. Zoe helps him up and Dean leans heavily on her, grateful that she matches him in height, as they limp toward what he knows is their master bedroom.

He collapses onto the bed, and Zoe unlaces his right boot and unbuckles his prosthesis.

“I ain’t being unreasonable. The kid is trouble. I can feel it. He’s weird, got too many holes in his story, and he makes you nervous.”

Dean manages to crack an eye open at that.

“He makes me nervous?” He’s starting to lose it, drifting into the pain-killer haze, and Zoe blends with the shadows of the bedroom. He can’t see her expression, just knows that it isn’t good.

“He makes you twitchy Sugar. You lean towards him and stay away from him at the same time. Like you ain’t sure if you want to touch him or run from him. I don’t know what team you bat for, but I figure some of it is attraction and some of it is a healthy and natural distrust. He _is_ a pretty boy.”

Suddenly Dean has more to think about than his aching head and treacherous brain.

\----

He wakes in the middle of the night, starving and unsure of where he is for a few minutes. In a moment that happens too often he tries to get out of bed and forgets his missing leg. Instead of fighting with the prosthetic Dean uses the wall as a crutch and makes his way out to the bathroom in the hallway. From there he hops to the kitchen to rustle up some grub.

Halfway through digging in their fridge Dean hears a noise, and jerks upwards only to bang his head on the freezer door. Rubbing angrily at the sore spot and the re-awakened headache Dean turns to see Sam, illuminated by the fridge light, in full winter gear.

The kid looks guilty, shoes off to no doubt be sneaky, and he glances around before making an apologetic face.

“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just-“

“Sitting down for a snack instead of sneaking out and bringing four feet and nine inches of wrath down on all our heads? Yeah, sounds about right.”

Sam looks around, gets it, and then takes a seat. Dean watches him wince when the fridge door closes and his missing foot is exposed. He chooses to ignore it as he drops cold cuts and cheese on the table before limping towards the bread.

“I could help. I know-“

“Absolutely nothing about where anything is. Also, I’ve got this. I haven’t had anything below that knee for a year now. I’m used to it.”

When Dean turns around Sam’s head is hanging, hair covering his expression, and Dean can’t help the sigh that escapes him when he finally sits down.

“What? Feeling guilty for highlighting my disability?”

“I wish I knew what to say to you. I used to – I used to be better at talking to people.”

Dean finishes piling ham onto the bread and then realizes he didn’t grab anything to put on it otherwise. Before he can get up Sam is moving, digging through the fridge and pulling out condiments and drinks. Dean accepts his can of soda, and then takes the knife Sam hands him to spread mayonnaise.

“Was that before you became a homeless drifter?”

There’s a weird pull to Sam’s mouth, smile and frown warring for dominance. “I’ve basically always been a homeless drifter.”

“Yeah, but at some point you had to be a kid. Somebody had to be legally responsible for you.”

Dean spreads mustard, piles on cheddar, and then holds the knife out to Sam, handle first. Sam looks at it for a long and silent moment before slowly taking the hilt and then wiping it off on a napkin.

“I had a brother. An older brother who took care of me. Our dad was – he had a busy job. So it was up to my brother to watch after me.”

“He’s doing a pretty shitty job if you’re risking hypothermia living in a car.”

Dean takes a bite, chews, and then looks up to see why Sam hasn’t responded yet. He’s frozen in place, full of horror at the sight of Sam sitting perfectly still across from him with silent tears tracking down his face.

“Oh shit. Oh shit man, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I didn’t realize he was – I mean I’m just – look I didn’t mean it. I’m sure if he was still around-“

If he was still around what? Dean doesn’t know what he means to say, or what he’s going to do about it. Sam covers his eyes and drops the knife, and all Dean can do is sit there and watch. They don’t know each other, and Dean has no idea what Sam wants. The kid’s been taking care of himself for who knows how long, and the chances he wants some strange man who’s been nothing but suspicious and rude to him comforting him are pretty slim.

Sam’s voice cracks when he finally speaks.

“It was an accident. It was my fault, but it was an accident. I don’t know how to make it up to him, and he doesn’t really want my apologies anyway.”

Not dead. Not dead, but out of reach. Dean can handle that. Same as Amy, Sam has been discarded.

He reaches out, breaks every rule and boundary he’s just set, and takes Sam’s hand. The kid looks up at him, eyes pleading and apologetic, and Dean makes a shushing noise that feels completely natural and sounds totally foreign.

“I don’t know you really well. Hell, I don’t know you at all, but Amy sees something in you. I’d like to say she’s got an eye for that sort of thing, because she claims she saw it in me and Zoe, and we’re real assholes at the best of times. I don’t know who I was, but who I am wants to be the kind of guy she thinks I am. So I don’t know you, and I don’t know your brother, but if you want a place to stay until you figure out how to approach him I got three empty bedrooms and enough cash to buy a new bed for your over-sized ass.”

Sam’s eyes tear up again, and then he’s up and moving around the table to pull Dean into a hug. The smells are all there like he remembers them, strong and familiar, and Dean stays with them until social rules dictate that the hug has gone on too long. He gently pushes Sam back, and then gives in one last time to the inappropriate urges and pushes the hair out of the kid’s eyes.

“You’re gonna have to do chores. It’s ain’t gonna be easy, but I don’t expect rent and you’re welcome to stay until you piss me off too much.”

The kid laughs, eyes sparkling with joy and tears, and Dean sees that he has dimples.

It’s a good sight.

\----

In the morning Dean wakes up to voices and the smell of breakfast. His stomach is stable, his head only hurts a bit, and the ever-present ache from his missing leg is dim.

He comes out to find Amy sitting in Zoe’s lap, fingers stroking gently over her fiancé’s short, bushy hair as she chats happily. Sam is cooking, a ridiculously short pink apron strapped around his skinny chest and his thermal sleeves pushed up to his elbows. It exposes a scar, long and fresh, that stretches from his wrist to where the sleeve stops.

Dean crashes into a chair beside the two women and Amy shifts instantly to flutter and mother him until he waves her away with a laugh. When she’s settled back on Zoe’s lap he turns to Sam, watching them with hooded eyes, and gives the kid a smile.

“They press you into service already? You two are slave drivers.”

Zoe lifts an eyebrow and Amy widens her eyes. “Ohhh Dean, careful, careful, Zoe has opinions and the race card.”

Dean laughs when the older woman slaps her fiancé’s ass and then holds her in place for a second and third.

When he looks up Sam is watching him, a sad smile on his face, and Dean nods his way and then settles back in his chair.

“So, ladies, Sam is going to stay with me for a bit.”

Amy’s mouth falls open, joy lighting up her face, and Zoe arches one eyebrow again before shrugging expansively.

“He gonna spend his days watching you write?” Zoe reaches past Amy for the French toast Sam has just dropped onto the table. Amy slips out of her hold and takes the chair on the other side of Dean.

“Well, I’ve got a job.” Everyone turns to look at Sam and he flushes before pouring eggs into the hot pan. “It’s part-time, but it’s three days a week. I’ll be out of your hair for that.”

“What do you do?” Zoe pours syrup over her toast and then starts cutting it into pieces.

“I’m a short-order cook at Walt’s. And I bake for him sometimes on my off days.”

“You’re the kid who makes the pies!” Now everybody’s turning to look at Dean, but he goes on because he’s wanted to say this for a while. “You taught me to love pie.”

Sam’s mouth trembles for a second before it gets under control and he begins to attack the eggs with gusto.

“Thank you. That makes me really happy.”

“Well I think we know what your rent is gonna be. Also, Dean’s gonna get fat.” Amy glares at Zoe, but the woman is already too busy laughing her ass off to notice.

\----

Dean recognizes the car as Amy, Zoe, and Sam push it and he steers. He wonders if Amy recognized it too, if that’s what originally made her stop, but he doesn’t ask. He just files away that Sam is a lousy driver and he needs to remember that.

The Impala ends up in his garage, his own truck parked out on the driveway, and Dean thinks it looks sad there, holding in some suspended animation as it waits to be fixed and loved. He runs his hand over the car’s hood, and then pulls back when he sees the pain on Sam’s face.

Sam brings a duffel bag in and Dean immediately directs him to the laundry room before throwing the kid the only sweats he has that might fit him. Bonnie bounces around, overly excited and barking to show it, and Amy laughs and plays with the dog for a bit before Zoe practically drags her out of the house and away from them.

Left alone with Sam, Dean is suddenly unsure of what he’s supposed to say. He hesitates, considers a number of opening lines, and goes with the most important.

“Can you sit down for a second? We gotta cover a few things.”

Sam takes the couch, hands moving restlessly over his knees, and Dean gestures for him to stop.

“It’s not like that. Look, I was in a car accident. That’s how I lost my leg. Got a head injury too. Sometimes I forget things, names or dates. Once or twice a word. I get things mixed up, and I have headaches. Really bad headaches. Twice a week I get visited by my physical therapist Lucas and he has a key. This is all stuff you’re gonna need to deal with.”

The kid looks around the room, eyes settling on the picture of Pamela for a second, expression twisting before settling, and then he turns back to Dean.

“Okay. I can handle all of that.”

“Last thing, I don’t remember the time before the accident. They said it’s a side effect of the head injury. It comes back in spurts. Little things here and there and the fallout is pretty bad. That’s what yesterday was. I’m not supposed to push it or try to get them back. If it happens I’m not asking you to clean up after me, but try not to make a lot of loud noises or – just try not to get up in my face. I don’t need a mother or a nurse.”

Sam nods thoughtfully, eyes landing on the picture behind Dean’s shoulder again and then darting away just as quickly.

“That was my sister. Sam-Pammy. Pamela. The biggest source of my name mix-up issues. Which, considering your name, may get a bit weird for you. Sorry ahead of time.”

The kid’s eyes are hard to read suddenly, off in a weird way, and Dean gets the distinct feeling that he’s hiding something very deep. Dean writes it off, sibling conversations will be awkward between them, and pushes his way up off of the chair.

“Zoe wasn’t wrong either, I’m gonna want you to make those pies.”

\----

Living with Sam is something Dean should have to adjust to. It’s new, weird, and he doesn’t remember ever sharing space with anyone other than Bonnie.

It’s totally natural.

Sam just seems to fit into his life. The guy can figure out what Dean wants before he knows himself. He re-arranges Dean’s kitchen so it’s more efficient and Dean is so grateful he bitches about it for fifteen minutes while Sam smiles at him. Sam knows when to push, when to back off, and how to help him without making a big deal out of it.

The best, or worst part of it he’s honestly not sure, is that everybody loves Sam. Well, everybody but Zoe who makes it a point to be completely neutral. Lucas thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread, and conspires with him to mother Dean beyond all reasoning and bearing. Amy treats Sam like a lost brother, literally hangs off of him while she asks questions and drowns him with affection, and Sam takes it with grace and dignity. Bonnie follows Sam around, big eyes loving and tail wagging, and Sam is particularly fond of that.

He tells Dean he never got to have a dog before. Dean covertly moves Bonnie’s bed into Sam’s room.

It’s not totally perfect. The first time Dean falls after a hard session Sam tries to pick him up and Dean snaps at him. Sam practically hides for the rest of the day, and Dean spends his time feeling guilty and angry about the guilt.

Sam gets distant, edgy really, when the topic of Dean’s sister comes up. It’s particularly odd because Sam is the one who brings it up every time. Dean doesn’t mention Pamela, doesn’t want to go into the blank space attached to the life he no longer has, but Sam can’t seem to help himself.

The thing that really gets Dean is the issue that Zoe casually brings up as the time that should be spring turns out to be more winter. They’re outside, Dean in the truck learning how to operate his new plow attachment, and Zoe looks over as he’s lowering it carefully.

“Are you fucking him yet?”

Dean hits the lever too hard and the crash of metal against pavement is deafening. Outside of the truck Amy jumps and Sam catches her before she slips on the ice. She shoots Dean an aggrieved look before saying something he can’t hear to Sam.

“No I – why would – that is not – _Jesus Zoe_.”

“Lord’s name.” She grins at him, feral and appraising. “And you want to. Don’t lie to me, Sugar. I can see it in all that eye-fucking you been doing.”

He fiddles with the controls, slams the plow again, and hits the steering wheel. “Son of a bitch! This thing is stupid Zo. How the fuck do you use this?”

Outside Sam and Amy are both looking at them now, and Amy makes a hand gesture Dean can’t understand but Zoe waves it off with a smile.

“Easy there big guy. It’s no secret. You work it the same way you have the last twenty minutes with little to no trouble at all, except you pretend you’re not avoiding a pertinent question.”

Dean thought his glare should have set her head on fire, but Zoe stubbornly refused to be chastised or spontaneously combust.

“I’m doing him a favor Zoe. I can’t let him stay with me and then get all skeevy on him. What if he feels – I don’t know, required to – it doesn’t matter. He’s damaged and I’m only part of a man.”

The second it’s out of his mouth Dean regrets it. He doesn’t necessarily just mean his leg, but sitting next to Zoe he knows what it sounds like. Her mouth becomes a tight line, and then she nods and grabs the control stick before expertly leveling the plow head.

“Fuck you Hunt.”

With that she’s out of the cab, crossing the driveway, and leaving the three of them behind. Dean rubs at his face helplessly before he looks up to see Amy raising an eyebrow and waving goodbye awkwardly before following her fiancé.

Dean finishes the driveway with Sam’s help, and when it’s done he’s grateful that the guy doesn’t ask for details. At least for the first thirty minutes it takes the two of them to settle into the routine of prepping and cooking food.

He’s in the middle of chopping green onions as Sam fries hamburger meat for tacos when the easy silence is broken.

“So, uh, Zoe looked mad.” Sam’s hesitant, eyes fixed on the pan, and Dean thinks he can still get out of a big sharing and caring session if he tries hard enough.

“Yeah. Hey did you already throw the shells in the oven?”

Sam’s look is priceless, face bitchy and tight, and Dean can’t help the smile it brings. Oddly, the guy doesn’t seem annoyed that Dean is amused by his expression.

“Yes, Dean, I put the shells in the oven. What happened with Zoe?”

They’ve been living together for three months. Dean would be lying if he said he never noticed the way Sam’s smile lights up the room, or the beauty of the kid’s eyes. With regular meals and a comfortable bed Sam has filled out, no longer a bag of bones, and there’s no stale body odor mixed in with the more pleasant smells. He’s a catch, that’s for sure, and Dean will admit he’s considered that. Thought about it more than once at night in his over-sized bed as he tosses and turns.

“I made a crack about not being a whole man. She gets kinda touchy about cripple jokes.”

For a moment Dean thinks Sam’s anger is going to be about Dean’s insensitivity. The kid is too gentle, too thoughtful, and he’s the type to take offense at that sort of thing. So when Sam slams his hand down on the counter Dean’s ready for a tirade about understanding towards the feelings of people with disabilities.

That’s not what he gets.

“It ever occur to you that maybe she gets touchy when you start insulting _yourself_ you big jerk?”

 _Jerk. Bitch. Shut up, Dean._ _The smell of leather and gun oil is everywhere. There’s a cold beer in his hand, smooth metal under his ass, and a field of stars stretched out above him. They survived another one, they won, and they’re together. That’s perfect. That’s everything. Unified, stronger than before really, because they can be split apart and still come together, because they need each other, because he’s protecting his Sammy._

The pain is hideous, a crawling and roaring animal in his head tearing everything apart and leaving nothing intact. The world is red again, the color of blood and damnation, and sirens scream around him. Someone is shouting about blood pressure and the red goes super nova while someone calls a name at him.

_Dean! Dean, please! You gotta wake up man! Please wake up Dean!_

“Dean do you know where you are? Can you speak to us?”

_I’m not going to let you die, period._

“Sir, Mr. Hunt, you’re being taken to Bangor General. You had an episode and hit your head. Do you remember that?”

_Dad’s dead Dean. Are you dealing with that? Don’t pin your issues on me!_

“I’m going to need an MRI to see if there’s a new bleed. Tell them they don’t have the right to come back here and they’ll have to wait for him to give permission.”

_My brother! Please, that’s my brother!_

\----

Dean wakes up to someone sniffling, pain a distant memory while he floats on morphine’s familiar soft cloud. He manages to crack his right eye open and the world is the right color from that side.

He’s in a hospital bed, knows them too well, and he has to consider the possibility that Maine was all a dream, because life is this; pain and suffering briefly interrupted by opiates.

Then a big hand brushes his hair back, and Sam is there. The kid is an ugly crier.

“You’re an ugly crier.” _Fuck_ , morphine still gets him every time.

Sam snorts, wipes his nose with his sleeve like a little kid and ignores his streaming eyes.

“I’m so sorry Dean. I did this to you. I’m so sorry.”

He shakes his head and regrets it instantly. There’re only so many things prescription heroin will forgive.

“No. No Sam this was before your time. S’ok. S’ok kiddo.” His voice sounds awful, and he wonders if he had a shouting match when he went under. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Dean I – I’m gonna leave okay? I’m gonna leave you alone so you can be-“

“You leave I never forgive you.” _You walk out that door don’t ever come back._ His head flares, pain beyond all reckoning, and when it clears he’s gripping Sam’s hand helplessly. “Please. Need you.”

Morphine and agony strip him of all his defenses, remove all his hesitations. He does need Sam. This was a bad one, no doubt, but before this he was coasting. Living off of Amy and Zoe’s happiness like a leech in the hopes that some of that humanity would rub off and make him a person.

With Sam he has preferences, tastes, and he has found a Dean that can survive and thrive in this world he woke up in. The past is irrelevant in the future he’s begun to build, and maybe that’s what has Zoe so confused and paranoid. Amy’s great, perceptive in a way he and Zoe can’t be because they’re both so on guard, but she missed the same thing Dean did. It’s not just about boning the kid, although Zoe would probably argue that was her only point, it’s about loving him.

At some point in the last few months Dean has come to do that. Maybe a little or maybe a lot, but Sam fits him like a missing puzzle piece.

The kid squeezes his hand, and then covers his leaking eyes.

“Okay. I won’t leave you. I promise.”

Dean falls asleep holding his hand.

\----

The next time he wakes up he’s alone. The nurse is hovering, and Dean tries to guess what the right thing to say is.

He goes with, “Where’s Sam?”

The woman’s eyebrow lifts as she finishes injecting something into his IV and moves on to writing on his chart.

“I assume that would be the large man in the hallway with the two women demanding to see you? You have to give us permission to let them in. They’ve been harassing my staff all night long.”

 _Sam snuck in._ Dean’s impressed and amused at the same time.

“They have permission.”

She’s smiling through her stern tone. “Press the button if they upset you.”

With that the nurse is gone, and seconds later the door bursts open and he has two arms full of tiny blonde.

“They wouldn’t let us in to see you and we tried but they wouldn’t so we distracted the nurses so Sam could sneak in because he’s sneaky but I wanted to come and Dean I was so worried for-“

Zoe’s hand snakes around and covers her mouth before the other familiar female face appears in his sightline. “Just say sorry next time, Sugar.”

They both pull back after that, and then Sam is there again. He sits on the side of Dean’s bed and studies everything but Dean’s face.

“You went white as a sheet, and then you fell. Hit your head on the edge of the counter before I could catch you. There was blood, and you were screaming. I called the ambulance, and then I called Amy and Zoe. They wouldn’t let me ride with you, and we’re not fam-family so they wouldn’t let me come back.”

Sam starts crying when his voice hitches on the word family. Dean takes the kid’s hand and holds it.

“You scared me Dean.” It’s little boy lost, and Dean responds by pulling Sam down into a hug.

\---

They keep him for a day for observation. No permanent head issues beyond what he had, no new bleeds, and Dean is declared safe to go home. Zoe drives while he rides in the back with Sam.

When they get home Bonnie practically assaults him. He pets the slobbering dog for a long time before pushing up and joining Sam in the kitchen. Dinner is simple but delicious after all the hospital food, and Dean is willing to let Sam handle all of the preparations.

He even contains his mocking to a short two or three minutes when Sam serves him and then cleans up afterwards. Just to show his appreciation.

After dinner Dean makes his way towards his room, and stops in the hallway.

“Hey, Sam?”

Footsteps freeze on the stairs and then thunder back down before Sam appears around the corner at top speed.

“Yeah, Dean? What do you need?”

“I was thinking tomorrow we should go out to dinner. I’ll buy.”

Sam grins broadly.

“Sounds good.”

\---

Dean spends three hours covertly researching dating tips and local restaurants. He wonders if he was any good at dating, if he dated women or men, and if he needs to get Sam flowers.

Where is he supposed to get flowers?

He ends up texting Lucas and getting back five paragraphs of mockery and a clue. By the end of reading them though Dean decides flowers are a second or third date thing.

Sam ends up changing clothes when he sees Dean in a dress shirt and tie. His friend gives him an odd look, but he comes back down in a white button-up and a black tie that make him look like he’s some government official. Sam wears it well.

Dean drives them the forty minutes to the Brown Derby, and when they get there Dean has learned three new things about himself: his sense of humor is terrible when he’s nervous, he doesn’t like people fiddling with his radio, and he’s really relaxed with Sam in the passenger seat.

The place is awesome, perfect atmosphere and great food. Sam almost orders a salad until Dean urges him into steak. He has the money for it.

“So, I know you said you’ve always been a homeless drifter, but did you ever want to…I dunno, settle down?”

His friend’s eyes cut upwards, side salad filling his mouth, and he looks pale and a little shocked. Dean regrets the question, but he can’t take it back now.

“Dude, never mind, sorry. I’m not good at small talk. Or I don’t think I am.”

His fears melt when Sam’s lips curve into a smile and he swallows his bite and shakes his head. “You aren’t. It’s okay. Yeah I tried settling down once. It didn’t work so well.”

The waiter drops off their meals and refills their drinks. Dean takes a sip before he cuts off a slice of steak and gestures with it.

“Because you didn’t want it to or because it was a bad try?”

“Uh, well, a bit of both?” Sam flushes and his eyes go distant. “To do it I sort of had to leave my brother and father behind. It was lonely, and I tried to distract myself from that, but when I got the chance to go back I couldn’t resist it. Then the door sort of closed behind me. I’ve never functioned very well without my brother honestly.”

Dean fiddles with his fork. There’s so much he wants to ask. What really happened with Sam’s brother, what was his name, how could he not see that Sam was too awesome to give up? He doesn’t ask any of them though, because he might not do this, but he knows better than to do _that_.

“Not for nothing, but if you wanted I would help you try to get back in contact with him. If that’s where you wanted to go. I know what – yeah I know I said before – well if it was what would make you happy.” It’s like choking, getting those words out, but he has to do it.

Sam’s eyes shine as he stuffs meat in his mouth. Dean feels a little guilty that he focuses on the way Sam’s lips stretch around the fork.

“No. That’s really nice of you, but I’m okay. I’ve got that one kind of figured out. The best way to do that is to just give him time to re – to think on all of it. He’ll get there when he’s ready.”

They settle into less dangerous conversational paths, but each one gets cut off too quickly. Dean doesn’t have much in the way of pop culture references, and Sam seems to have too many of them. It stays relaxed until Dean misses one from some movie. Sam’s reaction is almost violent as he bites into his cheesecake.

“ _Fistful of Dollars_ is not something you can live without seeing Dean. We’re getting it tonight. I don’t care what it takes.”

So the date becomes searching movie rental places, and sure enough Sam unearths a copy of the film. Dean gets a membership so they can take it home, and they settle onto the couch to watch it together.

It makes his head hurt, but he likes it more than he thought he would. It might be the movie, or it might be the bright and smiling face Sam keeps turning to him, as if the kid needs Dean to react before he can.

Dean falls asleep on the couch as the third Western starts up, and when he wakes up Sam has draped a blanket over him and gone to bed.

There’s warmth mixed with a sense of regret.

\---

The dinner dates become a weekly event, and every time when they’ve finished eating they rent movies Sam insists Dean will like. Sometimes Sam is right, and sometimes Dean fakes it because it seems to mean so much to the kid.

He doesn’t necessarily enjoy the gratuitous violence. It puts him off balance and leaves him nauseous and unsure.

Dean’s pool of stories is fairly shallow, and Sam tells him anecdotes from his childhood. Dean learns that Sam’s mom died when he was young, that his brother saved his life twice, and that the kid might have a bit of a complex over the guy. He talks about his brother a lot. The guy honestly sounds a bit like a shallow and abrasive horn dog, but Dean never voices that opinion.

As much as he loves learning about Sam the headaches are a frequent occurrence, and Dean has perfected not showing the pain on his face. He claims nerves and lets Sam drive so he can fortify with painkillers before they head out.

The headaches are one of two things he hates about their date nights. The other sends him to Amy’s workshop in the middle of the day. She’s in the process of finishing the angel’s face, welding on features carefully. Blue glass has been set in the space of the angel’s eyes, and Dean considers the whole piece before she shuts the torch off and lifts her mask.

“Yes? You are interrupting great art why?” Her smile is bright as always, friendly, and she hops off the stepstool to pour them both water. The days are turning warm, snow forgotten in the grip of spring, and Amy palms sweat off her forehead as Dean considers how to word his complaint.

“I don’t think he knows we’re dating.”

Amy’s face spasms, tightens, and then she breaks into laughter so hard she’s bent over clutching her stomach with tears in her eyes. Dean lets her go and then pushes her gently when she’s done.

“It’s not funny Ames. I seriously don’t think he knows. He doesn’t – I mean shouldn’t we have kissed by now? That’s how it works right?”

“Have you – oh my stomach – have you told him they’re dates?”

Dean sits, staring at her dumbly, and she shakes her head and wipes her eyes.

“You’re an idiot. I love you, but you’re an idiot. Tell the poor boy they’re dates. He probably thinks you’re just being friendly.”

It hadn’t occurred to him.

“What if he thinks there’s like – I dunno, strings attached? He could just go along with it because he wants a place to live Ames.”

She rolled her eyes and leans back on her forearms. “Dean, the kid was living in a car in the winter. I don’t think he’s the type to just ‘go along’ with things.”

There’s a flare of pain in his head, and Dean bites back on it. His pain-killer consumption is too high, and today he’s been trying to avoid giving in. Amy lifts a blond eyebrow but Dean shakes his head gently.

“Yeah. You’re probably right, but that doesn’t change the fact that then we’re dealing with him risking hypothermia and death again just so I can indulge myself.”

“You’re so ridiculous it’s painful. Stop it. I’ve seen the two of you. Sam is totally into you, the kid can’t look anywhere else Dean. It’s all big eyes and soft touches. If he’s not in love with you I’ll eat my MIG torch.”

“It would taste about as good as your cooking, Sweetheart.”

He ignores her good-natured cursing and studies the statue she’s working on.

“This based on someone you know?”

Amy flushes red and pretty before sipping her drink.

“The guy that was scoping out your place before you probably outbid him actually. He came over one day when Zoe was at work and asked, like, a thousand questions. Mostly about the area, but a lot about Zoe and I. He was kind of weird, but he had friendly eyes.”

Dean studies the blue glass eyes.

“Must have done something right if you’re making him into an angel.”

Amy shrugs and pulls her mask back down. “He made way for you.”


	3. Chapter 3

Several things delay Dean broaching the subject with Sam. His therapy is working well and Dean’s finally mastered walking on the prosthetic leg as if it was a natural extension of his body. To celebrate they go out as a group with Lucas and his girlfriend. It’s relaxed and Dean drinks a little bit too much as he watches Sam effortlessly socialize with his entire world.

Afterwards Sam drives him home, and Dean resists the urge to kiss the soft pink lips he stares at too much as Sam half-carries him into his bedroom and makes sure he’s settled before leaving.

Amy and Zoe have begun official wedding planning, and Dean has somehow been roped into the process. He comes into his kitchen on a regular basis to find brochures and ads spread out across his table. When he specifically asks Amy why his kitchen is planning central she looks around the chaos and then shrugs.

“I didn’t want the mess at home.”

He’d resent it more if Sam didn’t smile so much when he found Dean and Amy at the table talking dresses and invitations.

Sometimes Sam would join in, take the spot next to Dean and look over the details with them. He rarely chimed in, but when he did Dean would mercilessly taunt him. Dean’s completely logical reply to Sam accusing him of being a girl for being there first was: “I was forced. You volunteered.”

Sam’s bitchface was legendary.

Dean wakes one morning to noise that he tracks through the house until he finds Sam in the garage under the hood of his Impala. Cursing is attached to the loud bangs, and Dean heads around the car’s sleek body to see that Sam is holding a wrench and staring hopelessly at the engine. Hazel eyes meet his own gaze and Sam huffs.

“I used to know how to do this.”

The words trip off his tongue effortlessly and with no real meaning. “You never paid enough attention to me. This isn’t that hard.”

Sam smiles brightly, and Dean wonders if that’s his default for when people start talking like lunatics. To cover his embarrassment Dean grabs the wrench and steps in.

“You’re gonna have to take the engine apart for this.” He reconnects the bolts Sam has already removed and then wipes grease off on his jeans. “We’re kinda lacking in some tools here man. I don’t have a spanner socket, and there needs to be more space because if you lay these things out without the right order you’re gonna be in for a serious headache.”

“You know a lot about taking apart engines.” The dimples are out and Dean wants to lick them. “Think you were a mechanic?”

Dean looks down at his callused hands and then back up at Sam.

“I was definitely mechanically minded.”

It becomes their new hobby. Dean buys the tools and parts they need and for once Sam doesn’t argue him spending his own money. Every morning they head into the garage and work on the engine, and Dean loves it. Close quarters, Sam’s innocent questions, and the feel of metal under his fingers. He forgets everything else when it’s just them, and as a result his writing gets left behind and he misses the last stages of wedding planning.

The only drawback is that the headaches become living things. It slows down the progress because after an hour or two of easy conversation and hard work Dean’s head is so bad he has to lie down and sleep. Sam handles it with simple efficiency though, hands soothing as he brings Dean pills and rubs his temples like Amy usually does.

Maybe it’s not so much of a drawback. Then again, Dean still hasn’t managed to kiss Sam or bring up the dating thing.

Summer is fully upon them by the time Sam and Dean have finally finished rebuilding the engine. It’s a hot day, humidity thick in the air and sweat building on Dean’s brow, when he drops the hood and leans around the front of the car.

“Start her up.”

The beginning rumble is followed by a purr that makes Dean’s heart beat faster and his hand smooth over the sleek black metal.

“That’s my girl. That’s my baby.” The words come naturally again, and Dean looks up to see Sam gazing at him fondly. Sam slips out of the driver’s seat and then gestures.

“Want to try her out Dean?” Sam’s voice is teasing, light, and Dean considers just leaning in and kissing him right then. Just to get it out and not worry about it anymore.

Instead he slips past Sam and into the leather seat. His hands settle on the steering wheel and it’s like sliding into the proper puzzle pieces. He fits here, can feel the pulse of the machine beneath him and imagine the sensation of gliding over the open road.

_Home. Come home._

Dean gets out and slaps Sam’s shoulder. “You ain’t been taking care of her Sammy. How could you let my baby go so long without an oil change?”

There are tears in Sam’s eyes that make no sense.

“I thought it would hold out a little longer. Sorry Dean.”

“Yeah it’s always sorry Dean, but then you never learn the lesson. So where are we headed this time?”

_There’s a road in the middle of nowhere near a town that has too much bounty and not enough pity. Dean can feel the rough bark and the rope against his wrists where his jacket has pushed up. The sensation is less pleasant than the damp ground under him or the girl’s insistence on disbelieving in his non-existent plan._

_If Sam was here he would be okay, but Sam’s gone. Stormed off yet again and left Dean to hold the responsibility as always. He’d be angrier, but at least this time Sam is running towards Dad instead of away from him._

_That being said, this whole clusterfuck is getting out of hand. Then Sam’s there, untying him, and Dean is free to see that the scarecrow is gone and the trouble is deeper than he thought._

Dean wakes up in bed. Sam’s sitting beside him, face drawn and smile hesitant as he wrings the water out of a washcloth.

“You almost hit your head again. Avoided another hospital trip by about three inches.”

He groans, rubs his forehead, and then Sam is knocking his hands away to apply the cloth. It’s reactionary, insane, but Dean feels untethered and unreal anyway. He threads his fingers into Sam’s hair as his friend leans over him and holds Sam close enough to press his lips against him.

Sam’s lips are soft, dry, and Dean works to keep it chaste instead of running his tongue over that mouth and working his way in. There’s no struggle, no pull, but Sam doesn’t kiss him back. Instead they stay still and together as Dean breathes in Sam’s smell and gives him a slow and gentle kiss.

After several seconds with no response Dean starts to pull back, shame flushing his cheeks, and then Sam is there kissing him for real.

It’s muscle memory, and Dean gets the sensation that he’s kissed a lot of lips. He hopes he’s good at it, because even without a standard for comparison he’s fairly certain Sam is excellent.

Lips sliding on lips, Sam’s tongue pressing against him and opening his mouth up, and Dean grips the long hair a little tighter and takes everything Sam gives him. He files it away for future reference in case Sam is interested in doing this again.

When they finally break apart Dean is winded and Sam’s lips are swollen and dark. Dean rubs his thumb against the lower one softly. “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.”

Sam’s eyes go dark, mouth pulling down briefly before smoothing back out.

“Yeah, me too.”

\----

Dean wants to say things change after that, but it’s not entirely true. There’s an addition to the way Sam looks at him, considering and slow, but they barely touch unless Dean initiates it. It makes him nervous, unsure, and that’s never a good combination.

They dance around each other, dinners awkward and tense, near misses at home, and Dean can’t take much more of the questioning. Amy insists he needs to give it time, and Dean is worried that he can’t.

Then they’re in the kitchen, all four of them, when Amy drops her bomb on him.

“So, Zoe and I were talking, and we agreed. I was wondering if – well you see nobody is going to be –“

“She wants to know if you’ll give her away.” Amy hits Zoe and turns bright red. “She’d never have gotten to it on her own.”

“I would so have gotten there if you’d just let me instead of being a big old meanie.” When she turns back to Dean she’s still flushed. “I’m not going to have anyone else. I don’t really want anyone else.”

Dean licks his lips and glances upwards for a moment before looking back down. That’s as much self-control as he can muster though, because his next action is to pull her into a hug and then spin her around. Amy is laughing when he finally puts her down.

“Is that a yes Dean?” Zoe’s eyes are bright as she looks at the two of them, and Dean can only nod. “Of course you get a plus one. Anywhere you can find a date that’ll put up with your pretty ass?”

And that’s his chance. Dean turns to Sam and sees the kid’s eyebrows lift as he realizes what Dean is about to do.

“Wanna be my date Sam? I hear there’s gonna be some great booze at the reception.”

Sam’s hands twist nervously in between his knees for a moment before he nods.

\----

Summer seems to fly by. The wedding is set for early October, and Dean isn’t forced to help with the final preparations. This gives him more free time than he’s used to, since it also means that both of his friends are busy all the time.

All of his free time becomes Sam time. Sam’s acceptance of Dean’s offer seems to change something, and only for the better this time. Sam’s not necessarily clingy or forward, but he touches Dean more. Without the car to work on they spend more time watching movies, taking the long walks that Lucas has been harping on him about, and just generally hanging out.

Sam tries to teach Dean to bake pie, and he forcibly forgets all the lessons in the interest of Sam being the one to continue making them. Dean teaches Sam how to fix the sink and the garbage disposal. They take turns with chores, walks with Bonnie, and making dinner.

It’s domestic, more than he ever could have hoped for in the last year and a half, and it makes him happy.

By the time October hits Dean can’t remember what it was like to live without Sam. Which is great, but the night before Zoe flies down to join her family and drive back up to Boston he finds himself on the patio drinking a beer with her and staring out over the woods.

“How long did you and Ames wait before you had sex?”

Zoe spits beer and chokes, fake hand pressed to her mouth and eyes wide and bright in the darkness.

“What the fuck Dean? Are you trying ta kill me before my damn wedding?”

“Well it’s a – it just – you’re the only person I can ask goddamn it.”

There’s silence, the two of them shifting in their chairs, and then the clink of a bottle as Zoe puts her beer down and turns to him.

“Sam ain’t putting out and you’re worried he ain’t really interested.”

It sound pathetic put like that, but it’s true.

“What if – what if he’s just doing what’s necessary to-“

“Yeah, Ames mentioned you thinking this way. I’m gonna support what my girl said Dean. That kid’s so in love with you, you may as well crap rainbows and sunshine. Ain’t nobody in this world other than you when it comes to him. Everybody can see it but you, and that ain’t no surprise because you’re dumber than a box of rocks on your best of days. I mean, you didn’t even want to be friends with us ‘til Ames guilted you into it.”

He covers his eyes and takes a deep breath. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not true. There’s one person Sam will always choose first, and Dean knows that. Wherever Sam’s brother is though it’s not like he’s competition.

“I’m pretty sure I’m just as dumb as you think I am, because then I decided it was good idea to be friends with you.”

Her laughter is loud, boisterous, and she slaps his back hard before settling into her chair.

“Anyway, maybe the kid ain’t sexual. Or maybe you just need to make a move. Hell, Amy would have been a virgin forever if I hadn’t made the first move.”

“So you just, what, propositioned her?”

“What? No. I dropped something under the table and then went down and under her skirt. A few seconds of tongue and she-“

“Okay, that’s enough of that! No more discussions of Amy’s sexual life.”

Zoe’s teeth catch the yard light and reflect it.

“Ah, look at you. Taking your duties so seriously. Just like a proud papa.” She picks her bottle back up and clinks it against Dean’s. “Seriously though, thanks for that. She’d been worrying ‘bout asking you for months.”

“It’s my pleasure. Family don’t end in blood and-“ The pain spikes rapid and sharp, and Zoe misses the bottle he drops but gets him before he slumps out of the chair.

It takes several minutes to get upright under his own steam.

“You been getting those things worse and worse Dean. You need to see a doctor?” Zoe’s usual tone is laced with concern and fear.

“No. I’m fine.”

But maybe he’s not, because he honestly can’t remember why he said it that way. He was going to tell her that they were _like_ family.

\----

The ride to Boston is done in the Impala. Amy’s gone ahead so she and Zoe will have their truck for the honeymoon trip, and that leaves Dean on the road with Sam. Sam insists that he drive the beginning of it, but after an hour of the wind blowing in his hair and looking over at Sam’s bright smile Dean’s head is a marching band set to full volume.

Still, pain aside, there’s something intrinsically wrong about Sam driving. Dean keeps his mouth shut and his dosage high.

The bed and breakfast is beautiful, and Dean helps as much as he can with the set-up for the ceremony. It’s supposed to be small; friends from Zoe’s old firehouse and her family on one side, Dean and Sam on the other.

Rehearsal and the dinner that follows are laid-back and casual. Zoe’s brothers tell stories about her childhood, and her old co-workers tell stories about her and Amy meeting and how ridiculous Zoe was during the initial courting.

When the conversation lulls people look to Dean as Amy’s representation, and he swallows thickly before standing.

“Um, my name is Dean Hunt and I live next door to these two. When I first moved in I was in a bad place. I didn’t want to make friends or be a person; I just wanted to keep scraping by. Zoe was a hundred percent done with my bull - nonsense almost immediately, but Amy wasn’t taking no for an answer. She basically forced friendship on me. Then she forced me to see the potential for friendship, and more, in others.” At this Dean casts his gaze to the right and lets it settle on Sam’s flushed face. “I don’t have a way to really thank her for that, or for the thousand other things she’s done. I can only say she means the world to me, and I love her. I love you Ames. Thanks.”

Amy’s crying, hand pressed hard against her mouth and cheeks red. Zoe gives her a tight one-armed hug and lifts her glass in Dean’s direction. When he sits down Sam’s fingers thread into his.

“I’ve never seen you like that.” There’s wonder in Sam’s voice, as if he’s seeing Dean as someone new. If he’d known public speaking hit the guy so hard he would have tried it before.

“Well we’re only just approaching knowing each other a year Sam. You still have sides of me to see.”

Sam’s eyes cut away quick and hard, but he doesn’t say anything else. Dean gets the feeling he’s said something wrong and for the life of him he doesn’t know what.

The next day Dean and Sam are elected to be Amy’s assistants. This means that Dean ends up in the honeymoon suite of the B&B lacing up Amy’s dress as she fixes her make-up.

“You sure this isn’t too tight Sweetheart? This seems pretty tight.”

She rolls her eyes in the mirror and catches his gaze. “It’s fine Dean. I’m going to be fine.”

And she is. She’s got the love of her life, and if Dean has anything to say about it she’ll be happy until the end of her days. She’ll spread that happiness as far as she’s able, and he’ll get to be a part of it. He’ll spend the rest of his life next door, their quirky, damaged neighbor with, if Dean has anything to say about it, his similarly quirky and damaged boyfriend.

 _We die bloody_. _You wanted the apple pie life._

Dean plays through the pain of that one, and when he comes out on the other side Amy is a vision in cream, blonde hair pulled into a tight bun and veil hanging behind her head. He lifts it up and then lowers it down over her face.

“You look gorgeous.”

Amy’s smile is dim through the lace, but the hug she gives him says it all.

The weather has cooperated, and the outdoor ceremony is made better by the cool breeze and the bright sun. Autumn leaves blaze red and orange all around them and Dean has to hold Amy back a bit when she tries to break step and rush up the path to Zoe.

She grips him tight, and Dean makes sure that not a trace of limp is in his step as he passes the small audience and stops before the officiate and the second bride. Zoe’s tux is cut to her shape and emphasizes her femininity. Her eyes are sparkling and dark as she takes Amy in.

Dean lifts the veil slowly, kisses Amy’s cheek, and then gives her away.

When it’s over the group cheers and shouts. Dean is too busy noticing how Sam’s thigh is pressed against his, and the way that Sam’s mouth curls into a smile so big and real it’s almost painful to see.

Sam hasn’t smiled like that since- but Dean can’t remember how that sentence was supposed to end or why he thought it. He slips off to the bathroom to take another pain pill, and that ends up being a fairly critical choice.

There’s food, a variety of Southern comfort dishes that Dean eats like there’s no tomorrow, and the cake is delicious. On top of that Dean keeps getting champagne handed to him, and he’s no lightweight but with the painkillers he usually abstains. Now, seven glasses later, he’s more than a little buzzed.

Somehow he ends up across the room from Sam, dancing with Zoe’s mother, and she definitely got her height from her father. He can see right over her head, past the crowd, and there’s Sam talking to one of the firefighters. The guy is gesturing wildly as he and Sam take shots, and Sam looks past him for just a second and their eyes lock.

In a tux, shot glass in hand, Sam looks the epitome of dangerous secret agent. He’s bulked up in half a year, gained muscle and weight that he didn’t have when he was just a starving stray living in a car. He fills the black material out easily, and as Dean watches Sam hooks fingers into his tie and loosens it exposing smooth throat and a shifting Adam’s apple. Dean wants to lick it, can imagine what the flesh tastes like, and then Sam is looking at him.

They stay like that for a long time, eyes locked together and the world narrowed down to only the two of them. Dean feels like he’s trapped, held in Sam’s gaze and he doesn’t want to be anywhere else.

Then the song ends and Zoe’s mother pulls back gently and thanks Dean for the dance before heading off to find her new daughter-in-law. Dean crosses the room quickly, dodging people and conversations, and reaches Sam before the next song can start.

His fingers wrap around Sam’s wrist, and he plucks the empty shot glass from Sam’s fingers before leading him out onto the dance floor.

Later Zoe will tell him that she requested it, and that it was just too perfect a moment to waste, but in the moment all Dean knows is that the song is soft and slow, and Sam is in his arms.

_See the pyramids along the Nile, Watch the sun rise from a tropic isle, Just remember darling all the while, You belong to me_

They move in perfect synch, bodies close and fabric brushing fabric, and Dean thinks that Sam was made for him. Made to be right here with him in this moment and all the others. It should be embarrassing how gone he is over the kid, but all he really wants is Sam to want this as badly as he does.

Lubricated and full of emotion Dean leans into Sam’s ear and whispers, “Stay with me tonight.”

He can’t see Sam’s face, but the kid nods abruptly and then Dean’s counting down the minutes until they can leave without being rude.

Finally the two brides make their exit, waving happily and hugging everyone, and then Dean turns to find Sam and is instantly grabbed.

His boyfriend drags him up the stairs two at a time until they reach Dean’s bedroom, and then Dean is trying to get the key out while Sam practically eats his mouth.

It’s nothing like before. Sam is aggressive, desperate, and his tongue is sliding over Dean’s lips and rubbing against his teeth as Dean tries to give him entrance _and_ get the door open. The key sinks home and turns at the same time Sam’s hands start to rip at Dean’s belt, and Dean pries them off gently and tugs.

In a way, a perverse and strange way, Dean is about to lose his virginity. He’s not sure if he’s done this before, it _feels_ familiar, but he’s pretty sure it shouldn’t feel like this. Like it’s do or die.

They’re in the room and Dean pulls back enough to speak against Sam’s panting mouth.

“Slow. I want it to be slow Sammy.” The name slips out, and Dean gets that _right_ feeling. Sam, for his part, lets out something that almost sounds like a sob. It gets Dean’s attention.

Sam is crying, not the ugly sobs in the hospital but steady leaking. His face is twisted in lust and agony, and experience or no Dean knows that isn’t right.

“What’s wrong?”

Hair flies with the force of his head shaking, and then Sam’s big hands are gently cupping Dean’s face and his thumbs are rubbing Dean’s swollen lips.

“I can’t explain it to you. It won’t make any sense. You’re – my whole life I’ve been looking for something. Some kind of normal, and there’s never been a standard or a baseline for me to hope for. You’re offering me that, and I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but it – getting what I want could cost me everything. _Everything_.”

Sam is still holding him, still touching him, but the gentleness he’s showing is at odds with the tension in the rest of his body. Dean reaches up and takes one of Sam’s hands in his.

“We don’t have to do anything. We can stop right here. Just be friends and live together like we did before. There’s no pressure and no demand here Sam. I want this, I want you, but not if you don’t, okay?”

The hand squeezes him tightly, and then Sam’s fingers move so his lips can take their place. Not a kiss, but the sharing of something that makes Dean’s chest ache and his limbs loose.

“You don’t know how badly I want this too, how long you’ve haunted me, or how much I would throw away for just a shot at you. Even like this you can’t see how important you are. How incredibly special.”

Nothing Sam is saying is making any sense, but the way he’s undressing Dean now, the slow and reverent motions, soothe the concern that briefly quenched his lust. Dean returns the favor, belts and slacks dropped, jackets pushed off, and with each piece of clothing dropped there’s the sense that Dean is crossing some extraordinary line, reaching some goal he never knew he had.

Their mouths move again, mirroring their hands, and Dean can’t get over how good Sam tastes, liquor and steak from dinner, or the salty fresh smell of him, like ocean air. Everything about Sam from the little mole on his chin to his bitchy insistence on perfectly folded shirts makes Dean want this. Even the weird weight Sam has brought into this, the sadness that lingers despite how into it he seems, doesn’t stop how deeply this moment strikes him.

Sam is naked, long and clean lines exposed, and Dean drags his fingers along the scar on Sam’s arm, over a storybook of marks that suggest a much harder life than Dean had imagined, until his hand settles over Sam’s wildly beating heart.

He’s hard, vibrating so fast and low that he feels like he’ll shake apart. Sam’s eyes flit downwards and Dean realizes he’s the first person without some form of medical degree to really see Dean’s leg in all its twisted and scarred glory. For a moment he considers hiding it, but Sam’s face is so open and vulnerable Dean is afraid the action will break the vibe between them.

Instead he holds perfectly still as Sam’s hands trace where flesh meets false, track the changes Dean can’t remember happening, and then Sam’s shifting in one fluid and graceful movement so that his lips travel from the knee to Dean’s thigh in a wet trail of kisses.

Dean moans, threads his fingers into Sam’s too long hair, and allows Sam to take it at his own pace. Sam’s lips ghost over his cock, slide to the other thigh, and Sam’s strong and able fingers massage and knead at his legs.

When Sam finally goes back to his cock he reaches up and threads his fingers with Dean’s. They hold hands like that, Dean gripping reflexively as sounds are pulled out of him while Sam works the hard flesh with his hot mouth.

It’s too much and not enough. Dean wants Sam everywhere, wants to ease the lingering sadness and worry out of the man, because even if they change back to nothing he’ll still have this. The memory of Sam worshipping him with more than his eyes for once.

_Sammy that’s – I just can’t man. I’m going out._

He whimpers with the sudden onslaught of pain, and Sam sucks a little harder. Dean plays it off, pretends it was pleasure, and tries to focus on what Sam’s doing. It’s hard though, because there’s a soundtrack in his head that has nothing to do with the pleasure of Sam’s mouth. A voice that sounds like him but rougher, lower, and infinitely weary.

_Well hello Pamela, you can call me Dean._

They’re not welcome. This is not the time for the past. Dean doesn’t understand why this is happening, but it’s driving him insane.

_Dean, please Dean don’t you recognize me? I’m your brother, Dean._

Dean comes back to himself with Sam under him, gasping and writhing on his fingers. How did they get there? What happened in between Sam going down on him and this? Dean doesn’t know, and he’s afraid to admit that, scared of what the overarching implications of such a thing are.

“I’m – Jesus Dean I’m ready. Please, Dean. _Please_.”

He surges up, finds a tricky balance on his knees and then Sam’s wrapping his legs around Dean’s waist as he lines up and pushes in.

The past melts away, leaves him in blissful ignorance as Sam’s tight heat grips him and his boyfriend’s hands hold his biceps as the face he’s gotten so used to twists in a mixture of pleasure and pain. It’s that way for both of them it seems. The awkward positioning holding Dean back and the stretch slowing Sam down.

Dean stops, buried to the base in Sam and full of his smell and sound of his panting and gasping, and presses his face to Sam’s. This position is even harder, but Dean wants it to be hard. Wants it to take up every inch of his attention.

“I – fuck, Sam. I can’t – I need-“ and Sam reads his mind. Fists the short spikes of Dean’s hair and pulls him in before biting his lower lip.

The pace picks up, Sam riding him from the bottom as Dean focuses on holding position and keeping in place. Their mouths smash together, tongues tangling sloppily, and Sam’s left hand holds Dean’s head in place as his right slips through the sweat building on Dean’s back.

Pleasure wins out over pain, every sense heightening as Dean picks up on all of the little things. The way Sam’s cock skids against Dean’s stomach at this angle, the friction and pull of Sam’s clenching hole, and the blunt nails scraping at the skin of his back.

Dean slips his lips over Sam’s cheek, knows that no matter how much he likes it he can’t hold out much longer, and presses his mouth against Sam’s ear.

“Come for me baby. You gotta come for me, ‘cause I’m almost there.”

Sam nods and moans, body twisting under Dean’s and hips tilting further upwards. The hand in his hair disappears and Dean feels Sam’s knuckles brush against his stomach as they wrap around Sam’s cock.

And then Sam’s coming, surprise showing on his face as his orgasm crashes into him, and Dean’s following him over the edge. He collapses, hips still stuttering into Sam even as Sam’s ass practically milks him.

Lying side by side, hands linked, Dean takes a deep and shaky breath and releases it quickly when Sam’s head lands on his chest. He uses his free hand to play with Sam’s hair, damp with sweat but still silky and soft, and then presses a kiss to Sam’s temple.

If Sam changes his mind Dean can let this go, but he knows in that moment that he can’t live without at least a little bit of Sam in his life. His desperate plea in the hospital was only the prelude. Now that he’s seen Sam totally vulnerable, laid bare physically and metaphorically, there’s no going back.

\----

The next morning Dean wakes to a heavy head on his shoulder and long limbs wrapped around him. Sam is like an overly warm octopus, and Dean is okay with that. He needs to pee though, and untangling himself is apparently one of those muscle memory things that come naturally. He wonders if he had a lot of experience with that, which reminds him that they didn’t use protection.

 _Shit_. Did they run those tests during his hospitalization? He’ll get tested when they get back home, tell Sam to do it too, and isn’t that just a great way to start a relationship. He slips back into the bed and finds Sam settling against him again. His fingers drag along the jagged scar on Sam’s arm, too erratic it seems to be a suicide attempt, and the action apparently wakes Sam up.

“Accident. Metal. Sleep.”

Dean’s amused by Sam’s sleepy monologue, until the kid’s morning erection presses against him and then all he can think about is round two and that they need protection.

He leaves the conversation for later and goes for a lazy mutual hand job, slick kisses and full body friction, and that’s more than enough. The ride back isn’t awkward, but there is a distance between them that Dean can’t ignore. Sam seems distracted and Dean doesn’t blame him. It’s a lot to think about.

\----

The coward’s way out works just fine. Dean tests clean, but the doctor makes him sit through a new brain scan. There’s no new bleed, which is good, but he’s concerned about the rate that Dean is going through his pain killers and the amount of headaches.

Nothing much can be done about that though. It’s not physiological, whatever it is, and Dean isn’t willing to see some head shrinker. In the end it’s a secondary thing because Dean really only wanted to make sure he wasn’t exposing Sam to danger.

He picks the writing back up, and to his surprise Sam offers to work as an editor. His boyfriend, a title Dean has not tried out loud yet, seems entranced with the story. So much so that their first fight after they add sex to their relationship is about the story.

Sam’s across the table from him reading, one hand adjusting his hair every few minutes, and Dean is considering making a joke when Sam scoffs.

“What?” Cold settles on his spine. It’s not like he thought he was the next Bradbury or LeGuin, but the noise wasn’t expected.

“This part about Jared is – I just think you’re being too nice to him and too mean to his brother Jensen. I mean come on; if either of them deserves praise it’s Jensen. Jared is just a whiny brat who didn’t fit in so he ran away.”

Dean bristles, anger flaring the way it did in the old days when he first woke up without a leg.

“Excuse me?”

Hazel eyes flit up from the page and take in his expression. Sam seems to consider his next words a little more carefully, but not carefully enough for Dean’s building rage.

“He wants his cake and he wants to eat it too Dean. After abandoning his poor brother with his overly commanding father he demands that his brother just understand and forgive him without ever explaining it. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness he deserves to get his ass kicked until he sees what he did.”

There’s no time between hearing that and finding himself clutching the pages to his chest in fists that want to strike. Sam looks surprised, maybe a little shocked, but what comes out of Dean’s mouth next settles that expression into one of pure concern.

_You left, and you don’t know how bad it got, because you were gone._

“Shut your mouth. You don’t know shit about him. He was in a bad situation and he just wanted something of his own. Wanted to make his own damn life without his dad pegging him into some role he was never meant to live. He’s _smart_ , he’s _capable_ , and he’s better than them. Deserves better and shoulda gotten it. Nobody talks shit about my bro-“

Dean wakes up in pain, red settled over his vision and the world screaming and wailing like bad machinery. Sam’s hands are huge, soothing, but they only take a little of the pain away. It’s still too much, too heavy, and Dean turns his head just enough to vomit as his hands tear at the sheets.

There’s moaning, and it takes Dean too much time to figure out it’s him, and more time to realize that Sam is crying as he tries to get Dean to settle down.

Chalky pills settle on his tongue and he’s pulled upright just enough to swallow them with water. He’ll throw them up, throw them up like everything else, and then there will be no relief and no end. There’s never an end to the violence and the pain. It’s all a spiral that goes inexorably downwards. He knows that and yet he can never explain it to Dad or to himself. In the moment all that matters is vengeance and glory.

Darkness settles over him.

When Dean wakes again he knows that he and Sam were fighting, and why, but he can’t remember how it ended. What he does know for certain is that he’s floating, head foggy the way it is after a particularly bad blowout, and that Sam is holding him. The room is dark, and there’s the quiet sound of Bonnie snoring at the end of the bed.

“S’m?” His voice can’t get straight, words tangling on his tongue, and Sam shushes him as cold hands soothe over his forehead.

“S’ok Dean. I got you. We’re going to get through this. Go back to sleep.”

And he does.

\----

They don’t talk about it. Dean wants to, because he’s learned that talking about things often gets them fixed and orderly, but Sam avoids any possible chance.

Instead they go back to the way they were. Sam edits his grammar without comment, they laugh and joke over dinner preparations, and they watch movies. When Sam’s at work Dean walks Bonnie and tries to fight his way through troublesome plot points.

He’s run into a serious problem; Jared and Jensen aren’t acting like brothers. At least not the ones Dean has seen in real life and movies. Zoe’s interaction with her siblings, the movies Dean’s been exposed to; all of them paint a pretty different picture than what’s coming out in his story.

Sure, they joke and prank each other, and that seems right. They fight, a lot, and that seems okay too, but there’s something else. A tension, a devotion, and Dean doesn’t think is entirely right. They act more like distanced lovers than siblings and it’s not something he knows how to fix. Taking those parts out feels like a betrayal to the reality the story has taken on.

Asking Sam seems like a good idea, the kid grew up with a brother who sounds a lot like Jensen, but after their last fight Dean is afraid to bring it up. Instead he agonizes over it even as the story only highlights it more and more. The brothers dance around each other, tensions ratcheting, and somehow that reflects on real life.

The closer Jensen and Jared get to something Dean’s pretty sure they shouldn’t want seems to somehow enhance the distance between himself and Sam.

Then one night in December it comes to a head. Dean takes Sam’s hand to pull him up from the couch and Sam doesn’t do enough rising on his own for it to work.

Dean tumbles forward into Sam’s lap, and instead of laughing it off or using it as an excuse to make out Sam pulls back from Dean’s mouth and slides out from under him.

Awkward silence settles over them, and then Sam licks his lips and looks away from the hurt that is no doubt written all over Dean’s face.

“I just – I think maybe we need to cool it down for a bit. I have some issues I need to work out.”

He’s nodding, pushing himself off the couch and onto his feet as best he can without Sam reaching out to help.

“Yeah, sure man, no problem. Like I said before, no pressure.”

Except now he’s left to wonder why.

The strange distance continues for the next week, and when Amy and Zoe come back from visiting family they have an awkward dinner together characterized by Amy fussing to try to ease tension she doesn’t understand and Zoe glaring at Sam.

Dean pulls her aside after dinner and tries to explain, but in the end all that he gets is a lecture.

“Kid can’t be pullin’ you back and forth like that Dean. It ain’t right. You make a commitment to something or get the hell out you don’t ask for ‘time’.”

“Yeah, well, the world isn’t black and white Zoe.”

Her lips curl, predatory and amused, and Dean cuts her off at the pass.

“You turn this into a racial joke and I’ll take your arm. I’m not joking.”

“You’re such an asshole sometimes. Seriously though, don’t let him jerk you around. Set a time limit and if he can’t make up his mind then you make it up for him. You don’t have to give him the boot, but you ain’t got to sit around waiting for his pretty ass to get with it either.”

He drags his hand over her tight curls, smiles at the huff, and then pulls her in for a one-armed hug.

“I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Quit being a girl on me.”

Zoe bursts into laughter just as the door opens and Amy and Sam join them.

The laughter dies.

\----

Dean makes a decision a few days later. Intimacy or not Sam is his best friend, the man he’s been falling for, and Dean made a promise.

It’s surprisingly easy to hide what he’s feeling. Comes as naturally to him as fixing the Impala or sharpening his kitchen knives. Even Sam seems fooled by it, and Dean is oddly proud of his ability to fake it.

Things go back to some form of normality, although it’s always interrupted when Dean reaches out and has to stop himself, or when something sets him back and he needs more physical help than usual. On particularly cold and wet days Dean’s leg aches where flesh he can’t remember used to be. He finds himself rubbing his prosthesis, as if massaging it will make some difference.

Sam catches him at it more than once, but he never says anything about it. Instead they treat it the way they treat whatever was building between them; conversational anathema.

Dean’s book has become unwieldy, too long and detailed, but it won’t stop flowing out of his fingertips. The less contact he has with Sam the stronger Jared comes through. It consumes him some days, takes over every other process until he’s finding food shoved into his hand and Sam pushing him to bed.

New Year’s passes with light celebrations, and Dean’s wondering if he should do anything for the one year marker of Sam’s arrival into his life. He thinks the book is almost finished, or the inspiration is running out, and either way he’s almost relieved. There’s been a light break in the headaches, a reduction in aphasiac slips, and it’s good to be stable again.

He finds Amy in the kitchen when he’s looking for Sam, and he raises an eyebrow as he stretches to crack his back.

“Sam went for groceries. Zoe’s gone for two days on a fundraising trip and I didn’t want take-out tonight.”

Amy pulls out the chair beside her and Dean takes it, stretching his legs out and popping his knuckles.

“You gotta learn to make stuff Sweetheart. You’re a grown woman and if it weren’t for us and Zo you’d starve.”

She nods thoughtfully and then the door opens and Sam comes in with arms full of groceries and a plastic movie bag hanging over one wrist.

“Good news! Steak was on sale, so we’re eating like kings tonight.”

Sam still refuses to let Dean pay all the bills, and arguing with him dims what little of Sam’s dimpled grin he gets anymore. With that in mind Dean stands and takes a bag before unpacking groceries. Amy helps as much as she can, prepping potatoes to bake and washing beans, and Dean starts assembling a salad.

By the time they’ve finished everything else Sam is bundling up and heading out to the grill. He stays in the cold as Amy visibly fights the urge to bring him back in or ask Dean about what’s happening between them.

Dinner is spent with Amy discussing the new statue she’s working on. She says it’s going to be her masterpiece, a flowing and organic design that they’ll just have to see. Dean tells her he’ll take her word for it.

After she’s gone Sam pulls the movie out of the bag and waves it in the air with a hesitant smile.

“I got something new. Something we haven’t tried before.”

“What, you got tired of Westerns and Action flicks?” Dean can feel the fake smile stretching on his face, replacing the question he really wants to ask. _You got tired of me?_

“No, this is just something else I think you’ll recognize.”

It’s an odd choice of words, but Dean lets it go. He pops popcorn as Sam sets up the movie, and then they settle down on opposite sides of the couch with the bowl between them and the screen starting out dark.

Dean’s movie experiences are admittedly low, but the opening to this one is different from anything he’s seen before. The music is ominous, sets him on edge, and it only goes downhill from there. A frozen wasteland, people preparing for a long darkness, and a main character who seems wounded but sure.

Then everything starts to spiral down. There are monsters that slide through the dark, wisps of movement and shadows that remain undefined for a long time before they resolve to people with dark eyes and off faces, mouths full of teeth like piranhas or sharks. Pack behavior is everywhere as they cut through the town with ease, and the screams on the screen leave Dean shaking and clutching his thighs.

He keeps looking over to Sam, but Sam seems totally at ease with the carnage on screen.

_Vampires? I thought there was no such thing._

A woman is wandering, crying out, bloodied and desperate as she screams for help and the survivors call her bait.

_That arrow’s soaked in dead man’s blood it’s like-_

“-poison to them. In the new lore the sunlight just sort of weakens them. But it’s probably-“

_-still best to go at them in daylight._

Death. Death is happening on screen and it’s vivid and real. The rattle, the red viscous splatters, and the pain of-

_But they’re on the hunt and that’s what’s important. Not since the moment Sammy threw himself into the research on the Woman in White, face brightening and fingers flying over the keyboard, has Dean dared to hope they could have what they once did. That they could ignore everything that lay between them and simply be._

“Stop it, please stop it, please stop-“ He can’t give himself volume, can’t get words past the pain in his head and the lump in his throat, and Sam’s not looking at him, Sam’s not seeing how his hands shake or his desperation.

“Next we’ll watch a haunted house movie. I’ve got poltergeists and demonic-“

_It’s coming for her, it’s coming and he can’t stop it, doesn’t know how to stop it, and nothing’s worked, and Sam’s out there, and the place is using them against each other, and this is the last thing he wanted but, Sammy’s on the edge, Sammy’s in trouble, choking and there’s pain, and if he loses his-_

\----

Dean practically crashes through the door before Amy can say anything. Her hand is still in the air when he wrenches the wood from her and slams it shut. Her eyes are huge as Dean starts to take stock of their surroundings.

“Are the windows closed? Gotta close all the windows.” He walks past her into the kitchen and begins to rifle through the cabinets until the salt canister makes itself known. “I’ll lay the salt lines while you get the windows. Stay close enough I can hear you though.”

Ally is frozen in place, eyes wide as she stares at Dean.

“What – Dean are you okay? What are you talking about?”

She’s not getting it, not understanding the danger she’s in.

“Cassie it’s coming for you next. We gotta get the salt laid and get you protected Sweetheart.”

She shakes her head and suddenly he’s not sure who she is or why he’s here.

“Dean what’s happening?”

“Sam. We gotta tell Sam I know who it is and where it’s headed. Close the damn windows!” He’s practically screaming, pulse thundering as he thinks about Sam out there alone with the ghost on the warpath. The salt lines are shaky, but he makes sure they’re thick and unbroken.

When he comes back she’s still in the hallway with a phone clutched in her hand and a lost look on her face. He grabs her and pulls her into his arms to feel her shaking.

“You’re scaring me Dean.”

“I know baby girl. I know.” His sister, his poor little sister. She’s so tiny and fragile, so gentle in the face of a world that will chew her up and spit her out. He wanted to keep it a secret until she was older. Wanted to let her _be a kid for just a little while longer_. His head aches, red flashes moving across his eye as drums pound with vengeance in his skull. “I know Sammy, but nothing’s gonna hurt you while I’m around.”

His lips linger too long on his brother’s forehead, too close, _too close_ , but like this he can’t hold all of that down. Can’t forget that longing and love are so entwined with each other that they may as well be one entity. Sammy’s hazel eyes are downcast, and Dean can’t stand that. He tilts his brother’s skinny chin up and is met by blue.

 _That’s not right_.

Then he hears it, hears Sam outside the door screaming his name, hears the pounding of flesh against wood, and everything goes at once.

“You’re not Sammy.”

It shakes its head, blue eyes staring at him and long blonde hair flying wildly. Evil wears innocence so well, and if Dean didn’t know that it just tricked him into thinking it was his flesh and blood he would believe those big teary eyes.

But he does know, and there’s a vicious thrill in the revelation.

Before it can get out more than a simple, “Dean, please-“ he wraps his hands around its slender throat. Pressure is easy to keep up, fingers hooked into its windpipe, and it appears to be a good move because the monster struggles weakly under his grip. Struggles, but the struggles are weakening, and who knew killing something this manipulative would be so easy?

He can’t remember where he is or why he’s there, but big hands are grabbing him, dragging him backwards, and Dean spins to find Sam staring at him in horror. His hands are still clutched in the choking position, and Sam catches Amy when Dean releases her and pulls her up before rushing her into the kitchen.

“Okay, okay Amy it’s alright now. It’s alright. You gotta slow your breathing and try to get it under control. I’m going to get some ice for your throat okay? Stay right here.”

Dean’s hovering, unsure of what to do, and his head is aching like a living thing but he can’t sit down because he’s pretty sure he was trying to strangle Amy to death, but he’s not sure why.

Sam kneels down in front of her and presses an ice pack against the bruises already forming over her throat before he tilts her face so that he can examine her eyes. There’s a tension in the room, the only sounds Amy’s shallow breaths and the rustle of the pack.

Finally it hits Dean that he should be apologizing, explaining himself, but all he can do is look at the woman that took him in, made him family, and think about how close he was to brutally murdering her. There are long scratches on his forearms, and he wishes she’d gotten his eyes. Done real damage the way he did.

“Alright the good news is I think there’s no permanent damage. I mean, you know, before Zoe-“

“We’ll-“ her voice gives out in a coughing fit that bends her in half, and then she pulls up with tears tracking down her face. Amy is only looking at Sam. “We’ll tell her soup kitchen. Wanted to switch to animal shelter anyway.” It’s a whisper, hoarse and harsh, and Dean finds his voice.

“We’ll tell her it was me and she’ll give me the beating I fucking deserve.” Sam’s eyes land on him even as Amy flinches. “Then I’ll start figuring out how to get as far away from you as possible, Sweetheart.”

Counter to everything he thought would happen Amy grabs his wrist without looking over at him.

“Mistake. _Forgive you_. Please.”

Dean can’t look at her now, eyes roaming over the room as he tries to figure out how to word this.

“I’m not safe Amy. I’m slipping, I can feel myself slipping, and I don’t know why. I almost killed you. I woulda killed you if Sam – I’m not safe.”

“It’s my fault.”

Dean looks up, ready to protest, but Sam’s shaking his head and his face is hard and set.

“It is. You don’t know it, but it’s my fault. I’ve been prodding your memories. Setting off your episodes on purpose.”

He can’t breathe, world suddenly unstable, and Sam’s hands grip his elbows and lower him down.

“You couldn’t – how would – why?” What is he even asking? It’s absurd. Sam couldn’t trigger anything because he’s as much a stranger to Dean’s past as Dean is.

Sam pushes the hair out of his eyes and his lips move with no purpose before he licks them and looks to Amy. The little blonde is leaning on the table, one hand holding the ice pack to her neck and the other gripping spastically against the wood. She meets Sam’s gaze and shakes her head, confusion and fear clear without her having to say a thing.

“You’re not mixing up the name Sammy. It’s the only name you’ve been getting right this whole time. You don’t have a sister named Pamela you have a brother named Samuel who you’ve called Sammy his whole goddamn life until this last year and a half. I’m that brother Dean. I came here to find you, and when I found out you were remembering things I just wanted to – I had to help. I didn’t know it would tear you up so bad, or that it would make this happen, but you’ve gotta understand I just want you back. I want my brother back.”

He feels hysterical laughter escape him, and Sam’s lips purse.

“I’m not – Dean I’m telling you the truth. That’s why – that’s why I cut off what was – that’s why.”

Dean almost reaches out to Amy, feels his hand go that way, but he can’t ask for comfort from that quarter. He’s gotta handle this one on his own. Has to decide what’s more important, and how much pain he can take before he crumbles.

“Okay Sam, okay. I get it. I’m a big old mess and you don’t want to get involved, but Jesus don’t you think this is going a little far? Just say you don’t want to fuck a crippled lunatic.”

Sam’s eyes flare, whole face getting into the act.

“I can’t even – really Dean? That’s what you – you never even.” He huffs out a breath and pushes at his hair again. “It doesn’t seem to matter who you think you are you always put yourself low. It’s not a lie to reject you Dean it’s the truth. We’re brothers. You’re Dean Winchester, not Dean Hunt, and our father was John Winchester. You raised me. You took care of me. You’ve been _remembering_ that, but you just don’t understand it.”

Dean pushes up and the pain in his head is so great he’s sure he’s going to throw up. It’s too much. The break, the attempted murder, and now this.

“You’re either lying or you’ve flown off your handle and either way it’s shitty timing Sam.”

“Dean, listen to me because I-“

“I had a fucking sister!” It breaks out of him on a scream and he hears the clatter as Amy scrambles from her chair and puts distance between them. The hurt fuels the anger. “I may not remember her but I know. They had my records, there are pictures in the attic, and you can’t fucking – god damn it!”

He kicks the table and Sam never moves, never tries to run, but he should. Dean feels like he’s splintering, like everything is falling apart, and he can’t make it stop.

“It’s a mistake. A – she messed with your head Dean. Did a spell before the accident and the result was-“

And suddenly Dean understands. This isn’t a brush-off, some terribly timed consolation prize, Sam is fucking crazy. Has been reading Dean’s work and using it to fuel some wacky fantasy that makes Dean the brother Sam loved so much and lost.

He dry scrubs his face until he can get it all under control.

“Alright, I get it now Sam. You need help. We’ll get you help. You and me both, man. We’ll get someone to talk to and this will all get sorted out.”

Sam’s eyes flare again, and he pulls up to full height and faces Dean.

“Yeah. You’re right. We need help to get this sorted out.”

Then, before Dean can do more than reflexively reach for him, Sam is out the door and gone.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam’s room is empty when Dean finally makes it back to the house. Bonnie whines and follows him, tail between her legs like she knows how bad this has gotten. The garage is empty, and Dean stares at the space the Impala inhabited for a long time before a cold nose nudges him back to the present.

He’s gone. No note, no explanation, just gone. Dean trudges back through the snow with Bonnie beside him, and is amazed that Amy lets him in without hesitation. Everything hurts, he’s tired, and he lets her lead him to the bathroom and help remove his soaking clothes before she dries him off and unbuckles the prosthesis.

Dean is surprised when Amy wraps around him in bed, making the world’s most unbalanced pair of spoons, but the warmth of her at his back and Bonnie at his front lulls him into a sleep populated by dreams of Sam walking out on him and their life.

In the morning nothing is better. The bruising around Amy’s throat is dark and thick, Dean is hobbling badly, and there’s an empty house across the yard that he’s afraid to face. Instead of trying he sets out to fix the rupture Amy hoarsely swears doesn’t exist.

Without Sam the headaches are gone, but that’s cold comfort. Dean stops writing, considers burning the story entirely but that would mean going home. Instead he focuses on clearing the driveways, perfecting Mongolian Beef, and playing with Bonnie. The dog can’t seem to get excited about anything anymore.

Zoe comes home, and Dean stays in the kitchen by Amy’s directive and picks up pieces of the one-sided shouting match between the two of them. When Zoe finally arrives in the kitchen she stares at him as he rolls out dough quietly.

“She’s a shit liar. Was it you or Sam?”

“It was me.” He puts the rolling pin down and turns fully to her, chin tilted up for the hit.

Never before has Zoe looked so much like an ebony statue. Her face is hard, set, and Dean suddenly wonders if he’ll be exiled instead of hit. The pain that bursts in his jaw a second later answers the question without mercy.

“Okay, you deserved that one, and now we’re gonna let it go.” She sits down and runs her shaky hand over her face. “You gotta get treatment Dean. I don’t care what’s been screwed up in your head you can’t choke my girl. You got me? I can’t leave you around here if I have to worry about you hurting her.”

“I’ve got a referral.” Dean rubs his face and considers riding there alone after all the doctor’s visits he’s done with Sam. “I’m sure they’ll drug me stupid and make me talk about my parents.”

“You don’t remember your parents.” Suddenly her vicious smile is sympathetic. “Or your childhood. Or anything else. What the hell set you off?”

He thinks back, there was talking, someone discussing logically how vampires work, and then – nothing. Just blackness and pain until he woke up with his hands wrapped around Amy’s throat and Sam pulling him away.

“A horror movie. Something about nights and days.”

Zoe’s eyebrow arches before she shakes her head. “A horror movie? What are you some sort of monster killing PTSD victim?”

“A soldier could get flashbacks from screaming. Were you a soldier?” Amy slips into the chair beside Zoe and tucks her knees under her chin. “Did they tell you that when you woke up?”

No. It didn’t sound right, but then again it didn’t sound wrong. The memories he’d gained had a lot of structure, a lot of violence, and that _felt_ right, but he’d been in and out of hospitals since he woke up and no one mentioned status as a veteran.

“No. I wasn’t a soldier. I think I just wasn’t ready for a vampire movie.”

They’re nice enough not to press any harder. Instead Zoe releases him to finish his cookies and Amy watches from the table with ice pressed to her swollen throat and the occasional whispered comment.

He thinks of Sam reading off the exact measurements for the dough, pulling out a ruler, and how long Dean busted his balls about being OCD. Is madness contagious? Did Sam’s delusions feed Dean’s, or was it the other way around? None of the fractured memories he’s gotten back fit with what little he knows about himself.

Which means he needs to know more about himself.

\----

Dean hasn’t been in the attic since he moved in. The ladder was difficult to maneuver when he’d just started to adjust to the fake leg, and the box he wants is just past the opening. He drags it out and down before sitting on the floor and digging in.

The top level is paperwork. Most of it is legal, the Last Will and Testament of his dead sister, the sale papers for her house, and an unwieldy number of hospital bills and medical records. He digs through that to find the wrapped items saved from the sold manor.

There are two shoeboxes of pictures that go to his right, several baseball trophies with his name, and a stuffed bear. Nothing brings back memories, not even a hint of a headache, and he doesn’t feel anything he didn’t before he opened the box.

The first shoebox has shots of a little boy and girl in various locations and poses. Amusement parks, birthday parties, and backyard play sessions. Dean looks at the little boy with his blonde hair and green eyes pressed up against the brunette girl. That’s his sister. That’s Pamela.

It evokes nothing but confusion.

He should feel longing or loss, maybe sadness, but while the sight of floppy brown hair makes his fingers itch there’s nothing beyond that. It doesn’t help that the little boy in the picture is so far removed from him as to be unrecognizable.

Dean switches to the second shoebox and finds pictures of him in his teens. He was a baseball player, he enjoyed the outdoors, and he loved his sister. There’s something off about the pictures, something that Dean can’t put his finger on, but it leaves a bad taste in his mouth and has him loping across the grass with the box in his hands and the gears in his head whirling.

“Amy! Amy you home?”

She stumbles into view after the first minute of knocking, eyes wide and terrified, and Dean realizes he probably sounds the same way he did when he tried to kill her. He forces a smile and holds up the box.

“I’m sane, but I need your keen eye.”

It’s convincing enough, because Amy opens the door and lets him in. They set up at the kitchen table and Dean spreads the pictures out.

“What’s wrong with these?”

Amy squints. “They were taken on a lousy camera?”

“Yeah, but, no Ames something else. Something is-“

Her hands are fluttering, pushing the pictures into a crazy kind of order, and then she points at the one of him walking beside his sister and looks up. “Your legs.”

For half a second Dean bristles and then he doesn’t know what she’s talking about because Amy would not point out that he once had two of them and no longer does.

“What about them?”

“They’re not bowed in these. Not even a little. I mean the prosthesis throws it off a bit, but you’ve got bowlegs Dean. This guy doesn’t. Even if you could explain your hair darkening or the eye color being off because of the pictures this guy’s legs are all wrong. Plus, judging from perspective he’s maybe an inch or two shorter than you.”

He wants to argue, because what she’s saying supports Sam’s crazy story, rips apart what little reality he has, but he can’t. Sure, maybe the pictures were before a growth spurt, and maybe the bow-legged thing became more pronounced with age, but it’s more likely that the kid in the picture isn’t him.

Because it’s never felt like him.

\----

The door crashes open and Dean jumps as Amy comes through it and stops just long enough to pet a barking Bonnie.

“Dean! Zoe’s on her way over and she’s got something but she won’t tell me!”

Sam’s been gone for a month, and in that time Dean has started to ask the questions he apparently dropped the ball on. Namely, who he really is. When his own resources, pathetically thin and surface level, ran out he turned to the network of people Zoe had befriended in her time in the fire department.

The taller woman comes through a few minutes later with a grocery bag full of papers and a dour look.

“You better be grateful Sugar, because I gotta take Rueben Lafayette out to lunch the next time I’m in town and that man has some serious jungle fever.”

For his part, the best Dean can manage is a perfunctory smile in the interest of being friendly. Zoe grabs the seat next to him and starts pulling out pages.

“So, before we start stand up and pull your shirt up.”

Dean freezes in place, face no doubt incredulous, and Zoe rolls her eyes.

“You got too few curves and too many dangly parts to spark my fire Sugar just pull that shirt up and turn round real slow.”

He complies, and then takes his seat again. Amy’s mouth is covered and her face is pale.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Are all those scars from the accident?”

Dean shrugs and settles back into his chair. “I dunno. I’ve never really looked too close at myself.”

Zoe shakes her head and lines up medical records. “The majority of them are too old. Plus you’re missing Dean Hunt’s appendectomy scar and the Gemini tattoo on his back.”

Beside the medical records she places an official looking sheet, with a mug shot of the teenager he saw in the pictures and a list of crimes related to drug possession.

“Distinguishing marks as of 2003. Then we got this second problem, where you look exactly like this guy. By the way, this is what got Rueben on my case about lunch.”

It’s an artist’s portrait beside a crystal clear picture, and Dean feels his hands start to shake. It’s almost him. Just a shade off of the face that looks at him in the mirror. He looks younger, cocky and sure, and there’s a smirk that lingers at the edge of his lips.

He reads the list of crimes out loud, voice rising in register with each one. “Murder, theft, credit card fraud, breaking and entering, impersonating a federal agent, impersonating – Jesus, _grave robbing_?”

But it fits. It fits with Sam’s crazy story because they dig up graves in _Dean’s_ crazy story.

“Here’s the problem, Rueben says that thing is a relic. Dean Winchester died in St. Louis after they caught him butchering some poor girl.” Zoe’s face is serious, hand moving rapidly to collect the records back together. “Said it was big news for a long time ‘cause he was in town with his brother and the girl they caught him slicing up was who the boys were visiting.”

She pulls out one last stack and places it in front of Dean before slumping back into her chair.

“Last bit, and I don’t know if it helps Sam’s story or hurts it, but there was a lot of stuff going down when you had your accident. There’d been four disappearances in the area of men that fit a profile. Namely, they looked like you, Sugar. None of ‘em ever turned up, but the whole thing stopped a few weeks before your accident and it never started up again. Hospital workers reported the man that came in with you claimed to be your brother before the ID proved him a liar, and he was wanted for questioning. Still is technically. Description was a tall, lanky kid with floppy brown hair and big hazel eyes. Had a gash in his arm that was, and I quote, ‘in serious need of medical care’.”

Amy’s got hair wrapped tight around her finger as she bites at her lips. “So Sam was there that night? Doesn’t he have that scar on his forearm?”

 _Accident. Metal_. Like jagged car remnants ripping flesh as someone tried to unbury someone else.

His head doesn’t hurt, there are no flashes of anything confusing or unclear, but Dean knows suddenly and with terrible certainty that there’s a real chance Sam is telling the truth. Even if the truth is crazier than what may be fiction.

“I’m either a drug addict who magically got rid of a scar and a tattoo, or a dead serial killer who fucked his brother.”

Zoe’s eyes jerk up from the table and Amy is off her chair and headed towards him before her wife stops her.

“Dean you listen to me and you listen good. Whatever’s going on here it ain’t that simple. You’re the one who told me the world wasn’t black and white. All of this shit is just one side of some story none of us is equipped to wrap our heads around. Don’t matter though, because whatever it is we’re gonna be standing right beside you.”

Blonde hair flies with the force of Amy’s nodding. “And when Sam comes back we’ll just lay it all out. He can tell us what’s real and what’s not and then-“

“No.” They both stop smiling, eyes focused on Dean as he muddles through his thought process. “Because there’s that chance that Sam is not right, and that makes his information as meaningless as this.”

He pushes up from the table and digs through his drawers until he finds a black ink pen and tape. Both women watch as he doodles on his fingertips and then applies the tape before pulling the pieces off and sticking them to the back of a bill envelope.

The wanted poster and the booking sheet get placed side by side, and Dean squints at the envelope in comparison to the two. Amy sees it first.

Her finger lands on the right sheet and she bites her lip carefully. “You’re Dean Winchester.”

There they are, whorls and loops almost perfect despite the smudges of his faulty prints, and the ink doesn’t lie. The other set is close, but not right.

“I’m Dean Winchester.” He swallows hard and pushes all of it away, watches the histories of the man he was and the man he thought he was flutter to the floor. “I’m Sam’s brother.”

Silence rules the space, and Zoe seems to consider picking the papers up before changing her mind.

“This still don’t mean you’re a dead serial killer.” She pushes the fingerprints and police paperwork back into the bag.

He’s not even sure that’s the part that concerns him the most.

“And maybe – what if – I mean Sam knew right? So maybe that was something you guys, you know, did before. The accident.” Amy’s back in her chair now, knees pulled up as she seems to search for words. “So it’s not a big deal.”

The laughter bursts from him. “Not a big deal that I was _inside_ of my little brother? You got siblings, both of you, either of you want to bone one of them?”

Amy’s face cramps in automatic disgust before being overtaken by panic. “Well – no but Dean that’s not-“

“If Ames was my sister.” They both turn to look at Zoe’s thoughtful face. “If then, yeah, I would. I mean not my brothers no, but her? I love her. Don’t matter how I know her in the first place.”

“And it’s not like you two can make mutant babies.”

Zoe and Dean laugh at the same time, Dean surprised and Zoe fond and exasperated.

“Baby girl this is why I keep telling you to watch the History Channel with me. That stuff takes generations and it’s not like those horror movies you watched with the hills and the rednecks.”

“Shut up.” She pouts and leans her head against her knees. “It’s an honest mistake.”

“So now we gotta find Sam.”

Both women turn serious, and Zoe lays her hand on Dean’s wrist.

“If he doesn’t want to be found shouldn’t you just wait for him?”

Dean shakes his head. “He’s in trouble. I can feel it Zoe.”

“You guys couldn’t of been the only monster hunters right? Somebody’s gotta know you two, and know how to get a hold of him.” Amy looks hopeful, sure, and it brightens the mood just a bit.

Dean wonders though. Nobody’s come looking for him since the accident other than Sam. Is there anyone out there that cares what happened to the two Winchester brothers?

\---

It hits Dean in the middle of walking Bonnie. She’s a pretty good sport about being practically dragged back through the slush and mud of the driveway to reach his neighbors’ house.

“Zoe! Zoe you home?”

There’s a crash from their bedroom and then Zoe comes stumbling out pulling a robe on.

“What the hell set your ass on fire Dean, because I swear-“

“Grave robbing.”

Her facial expression is priceless, and if it wasn’t for Sam being on the line Dean would take time to enjoy it.

“I’m gonna give you the benefit of the doubt that you ain’t having another breakdown. What are you babbling about?”

“The rest of those charges would be pretty common, but how many people really get popped for grave robbing these days?”

Zoe leans against the wall and rubs her hand over her short hair briskly. “Yeah, okay, fair point. I know some people so I can ask around, but Dean if we find someone what are we gonna do about it?”

“We?”

Her dark eyes narrow and she frowns viciously. “We.”

Dean’s chest tightens and he tries to ignore it. “We’re gonna go looking for him and bring him home.”

\----

It’s easier than it has any right to be. Dean attributes some of that to the leftover parts of the old him, because when Zoe comes back with a list of twenty-five people in the state that have been charged with grave robbing Dean is able to rule the first ten out with just a glance.

The last fifteen get a closer look, and he drops anyone still in jail, anyone caught who pled guilty, and two men who upon Googling turn out to have Facebook accounts. That leaves Elias Wood, and the research is promising. Arrested for grave robbing and then released when a string of unsolved murders ended, Elias is an old man living alone in a secluded and defunct dump.

Four hours spent on the road leads them to Elias’s doorstep, and Dean surveys the yard as Zoe gets progressively more tense.

“Dean this ain’t exactly friendly looking. I know your one try at horror movies ended badly, but this is-“

She falls silent at the racking of a shotgun, and they both turn to see an old man squinting at them with the double barrels pointed firmly at Dean’s chest.

“Want to tell me what you two think you’re doing here?”

He licks his lips and then raises both hands slowly. “I’m looking for Elias Wood. I need-“

“Boy, there are signs that say no trespassing, no soliciting, and no proselytizing. Whatever you and your friend here are doing one of those signs applies to you.”

Confidence surges up and Dean takes a half step forward. “There’s no sign banning hunting.”

For a moment it hangs there in the air, Elias’s face still screwed up and Zoe breathing fast and harsh beside him. Then the man smiles and lowers the shotgun, face crinkling with joy and recognition.

“Well damn it I should have seen the chin. You’re John Winchester’s boy aren’t you? And here I am pointing a gun at you. That was rude of me.”

Dean almost laughs, but there’s hysteria right at the edge and he’s pretty sure he’s not supposed to show that.

“I’m looking for leads on Sam.”

“Your brother?”

He doesn’t wince, but it’s close. “Yeah. I lost him.”

Elias nods thoughtfully and then leads them through the wreckage to a rambling shack in the center. The door creaks loudly, and the interior smells worse than the yard around it. Dean accepts a seat in a disgusting chair and watches Zoe wrinkle her nose before taking the other one.

“I’m surprised you came to me instead of Bobby Singer, but I guess you were in the neighborhood. Last I heard you boys were riding together, so you want to tell me how it is you lost your little brother?”

_Well first I got my head scrambled in an accident, then I almost made him stay in a car to freeze to death when he was just trying to get close to me, then I fucked him several times and he fucked me, and then he admitted the truth and disappeared._

“It’s a long story that basically ends with siblings and a shrug.” Dean’s head jerks to look at Zoe, but her eyes are fixed on Elias. “Can you help us?”

Elias lifts one bushy eyebrow before grinning broadly. “Well no, not directly, but I have Bobby Singer’s direct line and he’s got the scoop on everything. Give me just a minute.”

He digs through three drawers, casually throwing things on the floor as he mutters to himself, and then he turns with a pen and paper held up triumphantly.

“Sorry we didn’t just go to him, but I’m missing a lot of numbers right now.”

Elias’s eyes sparkle. “You don’t have to be cagy with me boy. Whatever’s going on with you and your brother I’m sure it’s as complicated as a Winchester can make it. You know I worked with your father once. Hell of a hunter and a hell of a man. We took down a Rugaru together, and I swear that man was half machine.” This seems like a compliment, so Dean nods and smiles. From the look on the old man’s face it’s not exactly the right response.

“Thanks for this again. I’m sure Bobby will be able to get it.”

The truck is twenty miles down the road before Dean tries to break the silence.

“That went well.”

Zoe only grunts.

\----

He’s on speakerphone, the three of them grouped around the table and Bonnie lying on the floor with her head on his foot.

The phone rings and then a sharp voice cuts over the distance.

_“What?”_

“It’s Dean. I’m calling to ask if you’ve heard from Sam.”

_“Dean? You got your memory back already boy?”_

Amy’s eyes are huge over the table and Dean can’t look away as he tries to answer confidently.

“Yes Sir Mr. Singer. Sam kind of took off on me and I’m trying to track him down. You know, little brothers.” He forces a laugh as he trails off and there’s a long silence.

_“So you’re all you again and not a blank slate?”_

Blue narrows to slits and her head shakes slowly. “He knows something.” She mouths it and Dean swallows.

“Mostly yeah. Been getting stuff back here and there, but I think I’m almost a hundred percent.”

_“You’re gonna have to excuse me boy, because I know you don’t remember me or how our relationship works, but you must think I’m the biggest idjit in the world. I ain’t falling for this one bit.”_

What comes next is entirely reflexive, some buried instinct that Dean recognizes as the man he used to be.

“Bobby I’m trying really hard here, but you know that nothing’s gonna stop me from finding Sam right? I’m sure I used to like you a lot, but right now you’re a stranger keeping me from my brother. My brother who might be in trouble. I’m getting a little desperate here, and that’s not gonna end well for anyone.”

_“Well at least some things never change. I’ll check on Sam for you, but I ain’t helping you get yourself into worse trouble. You just sit this one out Dean.”_

The line goes silent and his phone beeps to tell him it’s disconnected. Dean reacts without thinking, hand sweeping the phone up and throwing it against the wall.

Amy winces and Zoe slaps his shoulder hard. “That ain’t helping.”

“It’s not hurting either. He won’t help me find Sam, but he fucking knows where he is! What gives him the right to decide what’s safe or not for me?”

“Old people tend to take that right as a part of aging. Don’t make them easier to handle but it isn’t something you can talk them out of.”

Dean considers that. Depending on how true the story he’s been writing is, Bobby is a hunter and that means he’s trained to be paranoid and violent. If he’s really dedicated to keeping Dean away from finding Sam then nothing short of that will convince him.

And really, that’s how the plan develops.

\---

It’s not hard to track Bobby down. The salvage shop is listed on the internet, and Dean’s gotten pretty good at looking things up.

He takes Zoe and Amy because they insist, leaves Bonnie in Lucas’s care, but he knows that he won’t be taking them any further than the motel room.

In the dead of the night when both women are sleeping in the other bed Dean collects the gun he bought when he started his search for the other hunter and slips out into the night. The trip from the run-down building to Bobby’s place is long enough for Dean to consider a thousand ways this could go horribly wrong. He doesn’t pay attention to any of them.

Leaving the truck down the road Dean awkwardly climbs the fence and then weaves through the rows of abandoned cars. The moonlight glints off them, and Dean is temporarily distracted. Enough that he misses the approach of the dog until it’s on him.

Dean may not remember Bobby, but whatever this beast is it remembers him. Slobber drips from his hands and face as he pushes the big dog off and climbs carefully back to his feet. The dog follows silently as Dean makes his final approach.

When he first left the hospital Dean was terrified of the things he didn’t know. The doctor told him that the cliché about riding a bike had a very real basis. The body remembers even when the brain doesn’t. Driving was only complicated if he let himself overthink, so Dean’s practiced long and hard at letting his mind drift as his body carries out the tasks he once knew so well.

This trick works better than Dean could have imagined. His steps are careful and broad, his hands know how to manipulate the picks he researched and bought, and he twists just in time to knock the shotgun pointed at him aside and then step into Bobby’s space.

It’s quick, brutal, and Dean takes a hit to the gut and one to the face before he gets behind the older man and wraps one arm around his neck putting the loaded gun to his head.

An elbow catches Dean’s ribs and he sucks in a harsh breath before tightening the hold on Bobby’s neck and cocking the gun.

_We’re gonna play catch. You know how to play catch boy?_

“I’ll loosen the hold so you can talk, but the gun stays out. You got me old man?”

Bobby grunts and Dean lets go a bit and feels the man take a deep breath. He puts enough space in between them so that Bobby can’t take the gun and then studies the man. Grizzled, heavier than Dean expected, and angry as a basket full of rattlers.

“What the hell are you doing idjit? Trying to get me to kill you?”

“Way I see it I’m not the one in trouble here. Now I need you to tell me where to find Sam.”

The man may be older but he’s sharp. His eyes narrow and then he points to Dean’s hand.

“You won’t shoot me boy. I know you better than you know-“

Dean squeezes the trigger, and the gun goes off. He’s a better shot than he thought he’d be, because the bullet pegs Bobby neatly in the shoulder and the hunter staggers back against the wall with his mouth open on a shout.

“What the ever living fuck do you think-“

“It’s a .22 and that’s a flesh wound. I told you Bobby, I don’t know you, and to be honest you don’t know me anymore either. Now tell me how to find Sam.”

Bobby’s mouth pulls down and his face goes thunderous.

“I’ve forgiven the Winchesters a lot boy, but breaking into my home in the middle of the night and putting a bullet in me may be my limit. You know you probably just burned the best bridge you have.”

“I considered that, but to be honest the only bridge I care about right now is Sam.” He swallows once and then makes sure his aim is on. “I’m sorry, and I bet when my memory comes back I’ll regret the hell out of this, but right now you’re in my way. Tell me where to find Sam.”

“Last I heard from your brother he was in Savannah looking for the witch that taught Pamela the spell. The Cirlot Inn. Now get outta my house.”

And Dean does.

\----

Zoe doesn’t ask questions, but Amy can’t shut up.

“Are you sure that you should have done that? What if he calls the cops? Also, Dean, violence isn’t-“

“You have to stop. I love you Ames, but you have to stop. Sam is in trouble and I don’t care about pissing the guy off. I can go back to pacifism after Sam is safe.”

They take turns with the drive to Georgia, and Dean is honestly afraid that his temper is reaching some new epic level. Not since those first days in the hospital when he honestly blamed everyone around him for his pain has he been so prone to snap. Zoe keeps quiet, watchful, and Amy tries to soothe, but the combination rubs him wrong. He needs something else and he doesn’t know what it is besides knowing that Sam is safe.

Bobby’s information takes them to outskirts of the city, and the motel looks shady and unpleasant from the outside. Technically Dean already knows the answer to his question, because he sees the Impala parked in the back and gleaming under the lights. The front desk clerk grunts at Dean’s request for a room and eyes Amy with something a step beyond regular leering.

It gives Dean an idea.

He gets settled in the room and then sends Amy with the picture of Sam in the hopes that the clerk will be more forthcoming. It works, but it earns him a rather hateful glare from Zoe and a decent but easily dismissed amount of guilt.

The tension he’s felt since Sam disappeared is increasing with every second.

Amy comes back victorious. Sam paid for his room for a month up front, and they’re only two down from it. Dean waits until he’s sure no one will be walking by to break into it.

Everything is as neat and tidy as Dean expects it to be. There’s a wealth of papers pinned to the wall, strings leading from pictures of people and buildings to notes written in Sam’s slanted hand. Dean studies all of them and finds the whole thing strangely comforting. This is Sam at his most controlled and logical. At least he knows that the kid went into this with a clear head.

The final target of Sam’s investigation appears to be a woman named Martha, and the picture doesn’t work out quite the way Dean thought it would. She looks respectable, grounded, and he wonders vaguely if Sam is as good at this as he thought he was.

“So we just go to this woman’s house and ask if she’s seen Sam?” Zoe’s peering at the notes while Amy digs through the trash to judge how long Sam has actually been gone.

“Looks that way.”

And it’s that simple, or so Dean thinks. Martha lives in a suburb setting, house set back on a large lawn and full of light and life. Dean knocks with the two women close behind him and then reaches back to touch the weight of the pistol tucked into his pants.

Martha’s just as normal in person as she was in the picture. She smiles brightly through pink lipstick and wipes flour covered hands on her apron.

“How can I help all y’all?”

“We’re looking for my brother. He’s got a condition and we’re worried he may have shown up here to harass you. Have you seen him?”

Dean holds the picture out and watches her study it before her lips purse thoughtfully.

“No I’m afraid I haven’t, but I’ll be on the lookout for him. Why would he be harassing me?” She looks up and her big brown eyes radiate innocence and honesty.

He doesn’t trust it. Something in his gut cramps and screams.

“I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to ma’am. He’s just not exactly right you know? If you hear from him please call me.” Dean slips her a scrap of paper with his number and she smiles brightly.

“Of course I will honey. I’ll be honest though if he seems dangerous I’ll be calling the police too. Nothing personal, but I can’t take a chance with that sort of thing. I’m sure you understand. Good luck on your search and God bless.”

“Thank you ma’am.”

They trudge back to the truck and Zoe leans against the passenger door casually.

“Something ain’t right.”

Dean nods.

\----

The wait for the sun to set is agonizing. Every minute is another one that might be Sam’s last. Zoe insists that if they’re going to do this they’ll do it right, and that’s how they end up at a gun store buying two new shotguns.

Dean takes one, Zoe the other, and Amy reluctantly accepts the pistol.

Once the moon is high and the neighborhood is silent Dean parks at a distance and then leads the way through backyards to the witch’s house.

The door gives easier than Bobby’s did, only one lock this time, and then they make their way through a picturesque domestic setting. Doors open silently as Dean peeks into every room, but other than finding the witch’s bedroom and the resultant spike in his blood pressure there’s no success. He considers offing her right there, then taking out the male body beside her, undoubtedly her husband, because leaving them there seems like a bad idea.

Dean feels like pulling his hair out, and he tilts his head back and takes a deep breath to resist the urge. That’s when he sees the string.

Gesturing silently Dean pulls the cord and a ladder slides down with a slight squeak. The three of them stand frozen in place for a bit before Dean grabs the first rung and hauls himself up awkwardly with the shotgun still in hand.

Slope-roofed and overly hot the attic is a large and mostly empty space. The only things in it are a small altar, and a lump of clothes.

Except the lump shifts, and Dean’s heart skips a beat as he thumps across the wood placed over beams until he’s beside what’s left of Sam.

His brother’s face is ruined, bloody and bruised, and Sam’s eyes are too swollen shut to see Dean properly. He’s lost weight again, face gaunt and pale where it’s not black and red, and Dean strokes a finger as softly as he can over Sam’s swollen cheekbone.

A low and pained moan tells him Sam is awake, but trying to play dead. Dean feels down Sam’s arms until he finds the big metal cuffs and then begins to pick the locks on them while murmuring as quietly as he can.

“S’ok Sammy. I got you. I got you baby.”

This close he can smell Sam, and fighting the urge to gag helps him to not think what the mix of scents says about Sam’s stay here. The first cuff pops open and Dean has just begun the second when he hears Zoe shout behind him, and then the quiet of the attic is broken by the roar of a shotgun going off.

He turns in time to see Mr. Witch’s body falling, Zoe’s open mouth, and then she’s flying across the space and slamming into one of the low ceilings as Amy screams.

Martha doesn’t look wholesome anymore. Her eyes are pure black, her hand outstretched, and her mouth is curled into a smile.

“Dean Winchester. Took you long enough.”

Amy steps forward, hands shaking as she lifts the gun, and Dean doesn’t have time to tell her no or to do anything. He just watches in horror as Martha’s hand jerks forward and slams first into Amy’s face and then her chest. There’s a sound, something wet and thick, and then blood pours from the face that has smiled at him so much before she crumples to the ground.

Everything he wrote, every last horrific detail, comes to the forefront of Dean’s mind as he pushes himself up and looks at the demon. He fumbles the salt shaker out of his pocket and holds steady. There’s not enough to make a mistake.

“You might want to smoke out now. Before it gets ugly.”

The grin goes lopsided as it tilts Martha’s head.

“Where’s the patented Winchester wit? Even your little brother there managed to drop a clichéd line before I beat the spirit out of him.”

Dean jerks, fights the urge to lunge, and levels the shotgun. He remembers Zoe looking disdainfully at his choice of ammo before loading her slugs.

“You’re in a housewife named Martha. There’s no joke that wouldn’t be obvious.” He takes a step forward, closer to Amy and the demon. Just a few more feet.

“You know what the best sound your brother made was? It’s funny, but no matter how experienced hunters are with being hurt there’s always this particularly surprised quality when you really start digging into them. I like to think that in that moment he realized you weren’t coming to save the day.”

_You hurt my brother and I’ll kill you. You understand me?_

The pain flares bright and vicious, the demon’s smile goes wide, and Dean throws caution to the wind. He squeezes the trigger and unloads both barrels of rock salt into the demon’s chest before taking the steps necessary to lay the salt line in front of Amy and between them and the demon.

Then he starts the exorcism as he reloads the shotgun, and when the thing tries to move he gentles it with another two barrels. The Latin comes fast and smooth, and the thing smokes out before he’s done, but he finishes the rest of the rite before he lets himself dial 911 with a shaky hand.

Address and brief description of emergency given, Dean goes to Sam. He hears scraping behind him and turns with his teeth bared and the shotgun up, but it’s Zoe trying to get to Amy. There’s keening, Zoe babbling her wife’s name in desperation, but Dean can’t think about that.

Can’t look at the blood that is probably on his hands as he holds a frighteningly still Sam.

\----

Dean gets a taste of what Sam suffered in Atlanta. He has no proof that he is Sam’s brother, and so he makes a desperate play by telling them that he is Sam’s partner much as Zoe is Amy’s. She has forms faxed from Maine to prove her medical power of attorney, but Dean just has to rely on the doctor’s pity of how terrified and shaken he is.

They tell him that Sam is malnourished, dehydrated, and has suffered multiple lacerations, burns, and bruises. He has a broken cheekbone, clavicle, and a fractured ankle. The doctor promises Dean that it sounds worse than it is, that Sam will bounce back with proper care and supervision.

Zoe’s news is delivered five hours later by a surgeon with blood still on his scrubs. Dean holds her up as the man tells them that Amy required a transfusion, that four of her ribs were broken and two of them punctured her lung, and that her eye was too damaged to save. She’s listed as stable but critical, and there are no words for the sound that escapes Zoe as she leans into Dean.

Together they stay in the waiting room. Sam and Amy aren’t allowed visitors yet, and Dean and Zoe cannot bring themselves to go back to the motel and rest until that changes.

Police officers come in and out, ask question after question, but they seem as perplexed as Dean is exhausted. Nothing makes sense, from their incredibly weak story about simply looking for his missing boyfriend to the plethora of evidence that an upstanding local woman apparently hid her Satanic hobbies right under the community’s nose. He’s not sure if he and Zoe are excellent liars, or the cops are simply desperate to get away from all the confusion, but they let them go.

The sun has risen when Dean finally gets the courage to say what he’s been thinking since the moment his brain started to work again.

“I’ll leave. Pack up everything and-“

“Bullshit.” When Dean turns Zoe’s face is ashen and her lips pale. Her left hand plucks at dried blood on her pants as her eyes move over the waiting room. “You’ll stick around, you and Sam, and wait for her to wake up and forgive your asses. ‘Cause she- no because _we_ love you both and we did this willingly. Only one at fault is that crazy Martha bitch. You leaving would just punish us.”

Secretly, he wonders if Amy will agree.

\---

Sam’s awake and stable enough for visitors first. Dean slips in and surveys the wires and bandages.

“You’re gonna have a hard time helping me around the house with all your shit busted.”

Blackened hazel eyes study him for a long time before Sam licks his cracked lips and croaks, “You’ve never been funny.”

“Well, I can’t argue how true that is, but I have the feeling you’re in pain and just a little bitter.”

“I’m sorry Dean.”

“I have the feeling you say that a lot too. Let’s make this easy, you’re an idiot and you could have died. I love you and I’m glad you didn’t. Everybody forgives you and we’re going to get tired of you apologizing so get it out of your system quick and stop as soon as possible.”

A smile ghosts over Sam’s busted mouth before fading into nothing.

“Don’t leave me?”

He thinks of the hospital, gripping Sam and begging without knowing who he was or what it meant. All the stupid shit he’s said that upset Sam and Dean is only just now beginning to see the double-meanings that would have cut and scarred.

“Yeah, I’ll stay.”

\----

Dean parts from Sam long enough to check on Zoe. They’re saying that Amy’s lung is probably going to re-inflate fully without further surgical intervention, and with any luck she’ll wake soon.

Zoe’s in the same clothes, dried blood speckled over her shirt and thighs, and Dean’s not in much better condition. There’s no chance of getting her to leave when she still doesn’t really know anything, and Dean doesn’t bother to try. Instead he promises her he’ll go back to the motel and get a change of clothes for both of them and their toiletries.

There are so many things to ask Sam. How much of the story was true, was accurate, and how much did he get wrong? Did Sam find what he was looking for before he got chained in the attic?

Was he ever planning on coming back?

All of that can wait though because Sam is alive and he’s going to get better. He’s going to come home with Dean and that’s it. That’s as far as he’s willing to plan.

Except the second Dean steps through the motel room door he knows that there’s a problem. Something’s off, something subtle and just this side of wrong, and that same gut feeling that led him to Sam tells him that now is the time to be on high alert. There’s a knife he tucked under his pillow, and if he gets to that everything should be fine.

He’s close, his hand brushes the scratchy bedspread, and then he’s stopped short by a smooth and friendly male voice behind him.

“You will not believe how hard it has been to find you. One minute I can follow your every move and the next you and Sam just drop off the map. Makes a guy feel unwanted.”

Dean turns slowly, hands dangling at his sides as he mentally calculates the space between his twitching fingers and the pillow.

Medium height, medium build, _fucking average_ minus the yellow eyes. Dean doesn’t need his memories. Over a hundred pages in total have been devoted to this demon and his eyes. He knows what the thing has done, what it’s capable of, and how well and truly fucked he is in this moment.

Knowing all of that does nothing for the urge to reach, to find, and his fingers stretch back and back over what feels like miles of cheap fabric as he tries to find a knife that will help him as much as prayer will.

“What can I say? We’re private people. I’m kinda busy right now, but if you’re interested you can just give me your information and I’ll send you ours when we’re back home.”

The demon smiles, ambles in and shuts the door casually.

“How I have missed that Winchester wit. Hey, Dean, help me out because I’ve been fighting with myself about which would be more impacting. Sam finding out I brutally tortured and murdered you, or Sam finding out I’ve taken you?”

Nothing prepares him for the sudden burst of speed, and the Yellow-Eyed Demon is there right in front of him. The monster from his book, the death of the family he doesn’t remember, and the catalyst that led to him being crushed under a car and scrambling his brains.

“To be honest I don’t think Sam would have a preference. Maybe we’ll go for the alternate ending where I gank your lousy ass.”

So close, pillow stuffing and case right there, and any second his fingers will find the wood of the handle.

“Oh Sammy will get his preferences eventually. Once he’s fulfilling his destiny he’ll get anything he wants. He can even have you back if he hasn’t found a better piece of ass by then.”

For half a second Dean thinks that he put the knife in the wrong way, because it’s not wood but smooth metal. Except what he’s touching isn’t sharp and it feels too warm and slightly alive. His hand tingles at the contact, his arm tightens reflexively, and then Dean is in motion before his mouth can form a return insult.

The demon tries to move, starts to move, but Dean’s faster. So fast he’s pretty sure his shoulder pops out of its socket as he sinks the blade into the thing’s chest. Dean doesn’t know what he hopes will come out of this moment, but he had no way of being prepared for this.

Electricity snaps behind the demon’s eyes and time stands still as Dean watches the sparks jump from one side of the monster’s mouth to the other. Then the lights dim and become regular eyes before the body slides off the blade and thumps to the floor.

Cylindrical, smooth, oddly shaped, and apparently made out of one piece of metal the short sword has no markings and no explanation. It was simply there, and whatever it is it can kill a demon.

Dean slips it into the bag he brought and hides it in the back of the truck’s cab. He empties both motel rooms of everything that can be connected to them and pays the rest of the room fees before he speeds back to the hospital.

\----

Zoe’s still in the waiting lounge, head tipped against the wall as she snores loudly. Dean goes down on one knee and tries to wake her gently but he’s shaking too much and his right arm is stiff. She jerks instead, eyes flying open, and her fake hand slaps Dean on reflex.

“Holy shit Sugar I didn’t mean to hit you. What happened?”

“Amy. Did they say how long it would be before Amy can go home?”

She takes a deep breath and then looks away. “If the lung goes back to normal the way it’s supposed to? If there’s no new bleeds and all the cauterized arteries and veins in the socket hold? Three weeks. Minimum, and she ain’t allowed to fly back. Even then she’s gonna be on bed rest and close supervision. Why?”

“I gotta go, and I’m taking Sam with me. I can’t explain everything right now but I think you two will be fine. Just stay here as long as you have to and then come back to Maine. I’m leaving the truck in the parking lot and going back for the Impala.”

He honestly expects her to argue with him or ask more questions. Maybe it’s what happened the last time she got involved though, or potentially she just trusts the gut that has been leading them, but Zoe simply nods and squeezes his aching shoulder.

“Want me to make a distraction?”

“That would be excellent.”

\-----

Doctors and nurses are held up in the tableau of Zoe going into hysterics outside Amy’s door. It looks like they’re trying to calm her and move her at the same time, but Zoe’s tall frame is immovable as she wails and screams for her wife.

It takes longer than he wants to move Sam, too drugged to help and too aware to not try, but eventually he wedges the huge frame into a wheelchair and begins to push. Once they’re past the nurse’s station it’s all about looking like Sam is supposed to be up and moving.

Then Dean realizes that his brilliant plan has them stuck here if he really leaves Zoe the truck. Sam looks blearily around the parking lot before pointing out Dean’s vehicle proudly. “That there!”

How much morphine did they put in the kid? Dean pats Sam’s shoulder as gently as he can before looking to the road. “Yeah, I see it. Problem is we need to get back to the motel a different way after I unload the truck.” There’s not much to grab so that’s a relief. He starts pushing Sam that way.

It’s perfectly logical to assume that Sam has drifted off on a wave of opiates, but then as he’s pulling the last bag out of the bed Sam pipes up.

“That one. The little Honda.”

Dean turns to spot the older car sitting a bit apart from the rest of the lot. It looks abandoned to be honest, and Dean wonders if there’s something beyond it.

“The little Honda what, Sammy? You see something?”

Sam’s head shakes as his finger wobbles around in the air. “Take it.”

Laughter bursts out of him unexpectedly. “What? Just, walk up and take it?”

Bleary hazel eyes settle on him and then a small smile curls Sam’s mouth. “That’s my boy.”

The burst of pain is sudden but expected, and Dean props himself up against the side of the little car and takes a deep breath.

“Okay buddy, save the memory lane trips for after we’re in the clear.” The car is unlocked, probably the owners betting on no one wanting it, and Dean settles Sam in the passenger seat with his knees practically around his ears before heading for the driver’s side.

It only occurs to him as he’s adjusting the seat that he has no idea how to do this. He turns to Sam and finds that same amused and distant look.

“No clue on what happens next. Tips?”

Sam waves the hand not trapped in a sling and smiles lopsidedly. “Hotwire it.”

“Yeah that’s helpful. Really helpful. How do you do that?”

“Taught me. Taught me everything. Love you.” Sam’s eyes drift shut and Dean’s left alone with a task that may as well be brain surgery. Apparently Grand Theft Auto doesn’t fall under muscle memory.

Frustration leads him to punch the dashboard and the little car shakes so hard the visor drops down and a set of keys land in Dean’s lap.

Providence, at this point, is not a thing he’s willing to question, and Dean cranks the Honda on before heading to the motel. No new catastrophes hit them between the hospital and the Impala, and Dean digs through the bag of Sam’s belongings from the hospital before finding his key ring.

Headache aside, driving the Impala is like settling into a second skin. Dean relaxes the further they get from Savannah, eyes darting less and muscles losing tension with every mile. At some point Sam wakes up enough to pop a tape of rock music in, and then he’s back to drooling on the window and snoring as Dean heads north on 95.

\-----

Zoe calls him the next day to say that Amy has woken up, and that she’s answering a lot of questions from the police as to where Sam disappeared to. She’s distracted, maybe a little depressed, but she sounds proud of herself when she explains the ridiculous story she told them about having only met Dean and Sam a week before at a gay bar.

It takes them three days to get home, because Sam absolutely cannot drive and Dean has to take breaks to medicate and sleep off the pain. When they finally pull into the driveway he considers going to get Bonnie that night and immediately rules it out.

Sam is quiet, morphine replaced by lower dose painkillers from a first aid kit in his trunk. Dean doesn’t push for more than being assured that Sam is alright other than the various aches and pains.

The two of them make their way inside, and Dean gets Sam set up in his bed before heading to the kitchen. There’s enough soup in the pantry to get by for a few days without shopping, and Dean’s pretty sure that they’ll be fine here. That the demon was telling the truth that being here keeps them hidden.

He heats up a small pot of soup and then makes grilled cheese sandwiches before dropping everything on a tray and taking it back into the bedroom. Sam’s sitting up, head hung low, and Dean clears his throat before sliding the tray onto Sam’s lap.

“Can you do that one-handed or do you need help?”

Sam sends him a resentful look that Dean imagines he was once used to before shakily lifting the spoon and slopping soup into his mouth.

Dean slides to the floor and props his back against the wall before tearing into his own sandwich. They eat in tense silence for a while before Sam drops the spoon and turns to Dean.

“Aren’t you going to shout at me or tell me how stupid I am? Or maybe you could tell me why we booked it out of Savannah so fast?”

Melted cheese sticks to his fingers and Dean licks it off before meeting Sam’s desperate glare.

“Is that something I usually do?”

His brother’s head falls back down, and Dean wonders about how much that aggravates his broken cheekbone.

“So you’re mad about that?”

Possible responses run through his head at high speed even as Dean pushes up from the floor and makes his way across the room to the edge of the bed. He sits carefully to not upset the tray on Sam’s lap and takes the sharp chin before tilting Sam’s face up so that their eyes lock.

“Did you find it at least? The answer you were looking for?”

What little color was left in Sam’s face beyond the swelling and bruising bleaches out, and he swallows thickly.

“Later?”

Yeah. Later.

\-----

Later comes a week after they’ve returned. The swelling is going down, minus the fallout from his cheekbone, and Sam is starting to look like himself again. On the other hand, the more Sam’s health improves the more withdrawn he gets. He watches Dean as if some impending explosion is building, and the twitchiness is starting to get on Dean’s nerves.

Admittedly, Dean does nothing to ease that tension. What time he doesn’t spend making sure Sam is regaining weight and staying off his leg is devoted to studying every page of his story. It makes the nights long, and Dean finds himself stumbling to Sam high on painkillers more than he cares to admit.

This isn’t a narrative anymore, a hobby to distract him from his own problems, this is their history. Every insult, every joke, and each heart shattering moment happened to them once upon a time. The man who sold his soul is their father, the woman who burned on the ceiling is their mother, and the strained relationship is theirs.

Jensen screams from the pages, trapped in a life that seems to have no exits, and Dean tries to picture himself similarly stymied. Tries to imagine a life in which he loves Sam but hates him, and the two things twist into some overly protective and repressed system of catch and release.

Did Sam really leave him that many times? Did Dean really say that? He wants to ask but he’s afraid to know. The only thing he can be sure of is that when he was Dean Winchester he loved his brother more than life, and he hated himself for the quality of that love.

Finally something breaks, and whatever it is Dean is secretly glad for it. Sam drops two pieces of paper in front of him and then adjusts his sling before sitting carefully.

“Those are our choices.”

He blinks rapidly, each paper a list of ingredients and actions that mean nothing at all to Dean.

“What do they do?”

Sam taps the one on the right and winces with the movement. “This one erases your old memories entirely. You’ll just be who you are now, and there’s no way to get the rest of it back once it’s done. It literally wipes what Pamela did and who you were. The other one will bring back your old memories and wipe the implanted and new ones, but-“

He cuts off and licks his swollen lip before leaning back and forcing himself to really look at Dean. Sam looks scared, and Dean’s honestly right there with him.

“But there’s a problem. Pamela did the original spell to try to make you into her brother. She implanted you with as many memories as she could, and if I had gotten to you then I could have wiped them out without too much trouble. The accident though, it did too much damage. Scrambled the memories she covered and the ones she gave you. Me being here has brought the old ones up, but it’s making the damage worse. So there’s a chance that bringing all the old memories forward and erasing what she did could burn your brain entirely.”

Dean swallows reflexively and then dry scrubs his face.

“You’re saying making me your brother again could kill me?”

Sam nods, eyes still partially swollen shut and shining with tears.

“I’ve been reading my book. You know that right?”

“Yeah.”

“I think, from the way you reacted, that it’s pretty accurate. Dean Winchester didn’t like himself too much Sammy. Did you know that?”

His brother, his ex-boyfriend, the man he’s been building his world on for longer than he can remember lets out a small noise and turns away.

“I like who I am. I’ve got good friends, I’ve got a house and a dog, and I’m pretty satisfied with that. On the other hand I think I know where this is going. I say I want to stay the same and you gotta leave to protect what’s left of my brain. Is that right?”

Sam nods and looks down. “Dean I don’t-“

He pushes the left sheet of paper towards Sam and stands up.

“Do it. Tonight if you can.”


	5. Epilogue

He goes to bed that night with Sam sitting in a chair beside him. There’s a variety of ingredients and pieces that Sam has pulled out of the Impala’s trunk, and Dean gives them the briefest of glances before leaning in to press a gentle kiss against Sam’s broken lips.

Probably should have called Zoe to say goodbye. Asked her to tell Amy how much he loves her, how much it meant to give her away, but the time for that has passed. Dean Hunt is about to die, and if he survives the spell Dean Winchester will get up in the morning and have his brother back.

Sam’s voice starts, gentle and lulling, Latin tripping off his lips like water flowing in a stream. Dean’s eyes grow heavy, his body sinks into the mattress, and he dreams.

_“You can call me Pamela. Would you like to come back to my place?”_

_He shouldn’t, but why shouldn’t he? What he wants he can’t have, and simply sitting around in the disgusting motel room with Sam and burning with need isn’t getting him anywhere but Hell._

_Pamela’s hand is small, but her grip is firm as she leads Dean out to her car and takes him miles away from the bar and into a neighborhood where acres lie between each plantation style house. The one she stops at is beautiful, but it looks empty on the inside. There’s too much space and not enough life._

_Dean runs his fingers though her soft brown hair, tilts her head up to study her eyes, and then leans down and tastes her lips. They’re whiskey and cinnamon, and Dean likes it. Likes to imagine she’s a little taller and less curvy._

_Fingers thread into his belt loops and her husky voice brings him back to the present._

_“Get settled on the couch Dean. I’m gonna fix us both a drink before the main event.”_

_Then the world shifts and twists. He drank from it, he knows that, but he honestly can’t remember the main event. When he wakes up he knows that he is Dean Hunt, and that his sister loves him more than anything. That she would do anything for him._

_A man comes, big and confusing, and he tries to take Dean away from his sister. His eyes are sad, and he keeps touching Dean and pleading. Pamela comes home and the man attacks her, but Dean manages to get his gun away from him and hold him off._

_Running, a car chase, and the big black vehicle behind them roars as Pamela speeds along the road and babbles, assuring Dean that the man won’t take him and he’ll be alright._

_She misses the turn, hits the high curb and cuts the wheel too hard, and then everything is upside down and right side up. Humid air kisses him, the night explodes with colors and then red settles in his vision before his leg is on fire and his body is screaming at him._

_Tilted eyes swim into view and giant hands roughly pass over his face as a voice screams over and over again, “Dean? Dean? Stay with me! You gotta stay with me!”_

_Wailing sirens, people talking, someone cutting his pants off and beeping machines. “My brother! Please that’s my brother!”_

_But he’s not, he’s not his brother. He’s no one’s brother, he’s no one, he’s pain and suffering. He’s spread out and cut open under the hands of demons and everything drips blood and screams as the world stutter stops in and out before his eyes._

_Darkness is a blessing, and he only hopes for death._

\---

When Dean wakes up Sam is sitting beside him on the bed. His leg is propped up on a pillow, and his hand is resting on Dean’s thigh.

He feels different. The lingering headache is gone, and there’s a taste in his mouth that he can’t place. Distantly he knows that he had a nightmare, but what it was he can’t say.

More importantly, the earliest memory he has of Sam is the lanky skeleton Amy dragged behind her through the snow.

Dean shakes Sam awake, too rough for his healing bones but unable to gentle himself.

“You didn’t do it. Why didn’t you do it?”

Sam’s eyes are bleary with sleep and pain, but he knuckles them one at a time before leaning in to kiss Dean.

“Because I love you more than I love having the memory. I can happily be with this Dean. He’s not that different.”

Everything else goes unsaid, but Dean sees it in Sam’s gaze. Which is when the last part hits him. The thing that slipped free on the rush of fleeing Savannah.

“I killed the thing that killed mom.”

Dean probably deserves how pissed off Sam gets.

\-----  
Sam gives him the cold shoulder for several days until he seems to grasp the idea that Dean just couldn’t care as much about finishing their quest for vengeance as he did taking care of Sam. After all, it wasn’t his quest as far as he knew.

And now, now they have to deal with the difference between knowing and _knowing_. Academically Dean knows that he is Sam’s brother, but emotionally that knowledge means little to nothing. It’s got the same logical but theoretical feel as the distance between the Earth and Jupiter or how every person he sees has a life and world separate from his own.

Some days it’s obvious Sam needs his brother instead of whatever it is Dean is now. Those are the hardest days, because Dean slips on the character from his book and sees every time he fails at properly playing it.

But he can do it. He can be what Sam needs, because Sam gave up everything for him. They don’t touch unless they have to; helping each other out when something is outside of their current physical capabilities. More roommates than anything else at this point, and secretly Dean hates that undefined quality even as he forces smiles and tries to get along just fine.

Then one night Dean jerks awake to warm flesh pressing against him. He turns to peer through the dark and sees the shine of Sam’s eyes even as one big hand slides gently over his hair.

“Is this okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Your book – you wanted this before everything changed?”

Dean swallows and turns his face into Sam’s hand as he considers possible answers.

“I can’t give you that Sam. I wish I could. That’s how I read it, but this Dean doesn’t know for sure if it’s that Dean’s truth.”

Sam makes a low noise and then kisses him, lips desperate and wet, and Dean settles into it. He’s not sure what Sam wants here, but he’s willing to give it. The kid is still messed up, not healed physically or emotionally, but Dean’s not able to turn away from this offer.

He lets Sam open him up, tongue wet and hot along his cock as lubed fingers slide in and out of him. Stretch him wide and slow while Dean’s thighs tremble and he digs his heel into the bed hard. His fingers tangle in Sam’s hair and he’s begging before Sam is even rubbing his prostate.

“Oh god, please Sam, even if it’s – just _please_.”

Maybe the connection isn’t totally lost. Even if Dean can only conceptually understand it he’s hard-wired on Sam’s frequency. Muscle memory appears to go a little bit further than Dean could have ever imagined.

“No.” Sam laps at the head of Dean’s cock and then slides up his body before nudging against his entrance. Dean angles up as best he can and feels Sam slide inside, burn and stretch better than he remembered. “It’s gotta be both. As much as it can be, but always. Promise me.”

He wraps one arm around Sam’s neck and pulls him down to lick into his mouth. To make the promise as best he can, to try at being Sam’s brother and Sam’s partner all at once. Shifting with the days and weeks until they’re both dead and in the ground.

Because being Sam’s brother assured that, being his partner only hopes at it. Dean got a reboot, got to forget all the abandonment issues that their life embedded in them. Sam doesn’t have any of that hope and belief.

Dean bows backwards, Sam’s arm helping to give him more leverage as he pounds into Dean and murmurs promises and love into his skin. It’s sweet, it’s violent, it’s them, and Dean reaches climax first and shudders as Sam keeps thrusting into him deep and hard while Dean returns the endearments he received.

They fall asleep tangled together, and Dean makes sure it stays that way every night afterwards.

\------

They’re in the driveway when the truck pulls up. Sam’s so still beside him he could be made of stone. Zoe gets out of the driver’s seat and then walks around to the passenger side and opens the door. Dean would like to say he’s ready, because Zoe’s spent enough time preparing him, but his reaction prompts Sam to grab his arm and hold tight.

She looks smaller somehow, thick white bandages swathing the left side of her face, and her movements are stiff and slow. Zoe shoots him a desperate look and Dean realizes they’re waiting for one of them to make a move.

It’s Sam that takes the lead, pulls gently before releasing and heading to Amy’s side. She tilts her head oddly, eye landing on Sam’s still slightly puffy and bruised face, and then she wraps one careful arm around his waist and buries her face in his chest.

Minutes pass in silence as Amy shakes in Sam’s arms, and then he pulls back and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“I’m so sorry Amy. You don’t know how-“

“You know, broken ribs aside, I’m still crotch level to hit you right?”

Dean’s laughing before anyone else, hand clutching his side before he moves in and gently takes a hold of her. Antiseptic covers her normal smells, but it’s her murmuring how happy she is to see him, and that’s good.

Very good.

\----

**One Year Later:**

“Baby girl please don’t put that thing in. You know that creeps me right the hell out.”

Dean looks up from the gravestone he’s carving to see Amy dancing past Zoe’s outstretched hand with a glass ball in her grip. She practically crash lands in front of Dean and holds it up proudly.

It’s an eye, with a spider where the pupil and iris should go, and her eyebrows dance as she waves it back and forth.

“Zoe’s afraid of spiders, Zoe’s afraid of spiders!”

Sing-songing past him Amy slams into Sam as he balances grey paint in both hands. He just manages to fumble the paint down onto the ground and catch her before she falls.

“What the hell is-“

Dean tries to stop him but Amy’s already picked up on it.

“Zoe is afraid of spiders, Zoe is afraid of spiders, Zoe is-“

The woman in question swoops in and grabs the little blonde up before covering her mouth with her remaining hand.

“I’m sorry y’all I don’t know what gets into her when candy is involved. Some kind of dementia that obviously needs to be treated with instant sugar deprivation.”

Amy squeals sadly behind Zoe’s hand and Dean almost destroys the skull he’s been carefully crafting as he laughs. Zoe carries her struggling wife out and Sam puts both paint cans down and leans in to kiss Dean’s forehead.

“You’re getting better at that with every day.”

Dean looks up from the tombstone to see the way Sam is studying him, eyes bright and mouth curved into a smile.

“Yeah, well, I take my hobbies seriously. I thought you didn’t like Halloween?”

His boyfriend shrugs and looks away for a moment before popping one of the paint cans open. Sam’s gotten big again, filled out and relaxed. He managed to get his position at the diner back, and Dean reaps the benefits in leftover pies and the best home fries in existence.

Dean loves him more than words, and he’s not ashamed to admit it or to express it. Sam always reacts to this with a guarded optimism, and Dean can’t wait until the day that even that is gone. They shift titles seamlessly, brother to boyfriend, partner to everything, and Dean can’t imagine any other life than this one.

“I don’t. I like seeing you smile this much though.”

The doorbell interrupts Dean’s perfect response, and he waves a hand at Sam before plucking up the candy bowl and heading for the door. Feet slam the floorboards behind him and Amy comes skidding up to his side as she adjusts the glass eyeball in her socket.

When he finally wins the struggle for the doorknob the man on the other side is most certainly not trick-or-treating. Short black hair, a rugged face, and bright blue eyes study Dean carefully as Amy makes a noise beside him.

“Mr. Novak! What are you doing here?”

Dean glances Amy’s way before turning back to the stranger at the door.

“Hello Amy. I came to ask Dean if I could have my knife back, and to see how he is doing.”

There’s a slithering noise, and Dean tears his eyes away from the stranger to see that Amy is on the floor with the wall at her back and her chin resting on her chest.

“What the fuck-“

Except then he’s in the bedroom, and the man is reaching under Dean and Sam’s bed and pulling the knife that killed the demon out from its hiding place.

“Dean, are you well? Also, have you decided if you will return to hunting with your brother or not?”

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, but if you hurt her or-“

The blue eyes look surprised and hurt, and Dean swallows the rest of it down and finds he can lift his hands.

“Look, I don’t know what you want but-“

“I have said what I want twice already. Do you need me to repeat it a third time or are you using a colloquial phrase I am unfamiliar with?”

Not joking, not trying to be smart, he’s _really_ asking Dean that.

“I’m- this is weird. You know that, right? Are you another monster?”

Blue tilts to the left in the direction Dean left Sam, and then lands back on him.

“No. I am not a monster. Yes, this is weird. I will leave after I know the answers though, so that may ease some of your tension.”

Dean swallows and thinks about his answer. “I’m fine. Happy. I’m never going to hunt again.”

The man’s mouth twitches as if it wants to smile but doesn’t quite know how.

“That is very good. May I ask why?”

“Because it’s an unending cycle that only leads to death and misery.”

Head nodding he tucks the sword into one sleeve and brushes past Dean into the hallway.

“Take care of yourself Dean. It has been a pleasure to see you grow so much.”

Dean breaks the paralysis and heads into the hallway, but other than Amy standing against the wall and blinking there’s no sign of their visitor. She turns her eye on him and blinks rapidly.

“Did I just black out? I swear I was coming here to do something.”

He wraps one arm around her and pulls her in tight as they make their way back to where he can hear Sam’s booming laughter and Zoe’s raucous response.

“No Ames. You were here to hear my secret.”

“Secret? Ohhh I love secrets!”

Dean presses his lips against her soft blonde hair before pulling the box out of his pocket.

“Think he’ll say yes?”


End file.
